Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Not Everyone Loves White House Title I/Standards Proposal

I must admit, I was surprised (and less than thrilled) that the Obama administration seems to be tying their goals to everything that moves in education.

This from Alyson Klein at Politics K-12:
Yesterday, we heard from governors who either praised the proposal to tie Title I money to rigorous college and career-readiness standards in a renewed Elementary and Secondary Education Act ... or said they were still "studying" it.

But last night, the National School Boards Association put out its own statement. And that group is not happy with what it sees as federal "coercion" (Catherine Gewertz over at Curriculum Matters has more.) Meanwhile, David Shreve over at the National Conference of State Legislatures also told me he's worried about the feds stepping on what has been a state and local issue. It seems the farther you go down the chain of government, the more concern there is over this proposal, although a number of groups have yet to weigh in.

And we still haven't heard from another key constituency: Congress. Tomorrow, I'm planning to attend the House Education and Labor Committee's very first hearing on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The topic is charter schools, probably the issue most likely to have Republicans and Democrats joining in a kumbaya chorus of bipartisan agreement....

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