Increased government control has once again failed to improve the quality of education for America’s minority students. According to Charles Rose, general counsel at the Department of Education who testified at a recent Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing, Native American students are the country’s most underserved. Rose went on to say at the hearing, during which revisions to the No Child Left Behind Act were being considered, that this act had succeeded only at exposing the poor performance of disadvantaged and minority students. The statistics for Native American students …
Last year, GM CEO Rick Wagoner “voluntarily” stepped aside when Washington took over his company. BP is “voluntarily” setting up a $20 billion escrow account. And now, states are being pushed to “voluntarily” adopt national education standards and tests. It all began when the Obama administration used its $4.35 billion Race to the Top competitive grant fund as an incentive for states to adopt standards under development by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers (one of the “education blob” groups that protects the status …
It’s not exactly news that the federal No Child Left Behind program has encouraged the states to define proficiency downward in order to avoid triggering various federal sanctions. But judging from Education Next’s recent grading of state proficiency standards, the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program is no fix. Here’s the journal’s overall finding: “Every state, for both reading and math (with the exception of Massachusetts for math), deems more students ‘proficient’ on its own assessments than NAEP [the National Assessment of Educational Progress] does. The average difference is a …
Results from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment have just been released and are, well, uninspiring. Reading achievement, despite significant increases in spending over the past few decades and increasing federal policy intervention in the past decade, has remained flat. The lackluster results indicate that the top-down approach of federal policy, characterized by No Child Left Behind and the current administration’s policy, has not led to significant increases in student achievement. But, despite the bad news, there is an outlier among the states– Florida. The Sunshine …
Certainly one of the most unfortunate provisions in the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization “blueprint” is the elimination of school choice and supplemental education services for students trapped in failing schools. The school choice provisions contained within NCLB, while limited, provide an opportunity for children to escape persistently low-performing public schools. The Obama administration’s decision to cut that lifeline for families is symbolic of its educational philosophy in general. Theirs is a philosophy which refuses to acknowledge the virtue of educational choice and continues to see the …
“Deeming” and “reconciliation” are hardly household words, but for the next week Americans will come to know them as key procedural maneuvers that could push Obamacare across the finish line. But while they might deliver a bill to President Obama’s desk, they will also make it easier to repeal the measure, says former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove. On the road for his “Courage and Consequence” book tour, Rove chatted with The Heritage Foundation about Obamacare, his defense of President George W. Bush’s conservatism, the growth of …
Over the weekend, the administration released its “blueprint” for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The blueprint provides the administration’s vision for reauthorizing ESEA, in its current iteration known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), due for reauthorization since 2007. The plan to tackle the reauthorization of NCLB marks the most significant undertaking in the realm of federal education policy since the law was originally crafted in 2001. For the education policy world, this is huge; for the Obama administration, this offers a prime opportunity …
President Obama’s proposal Monday to link Title I funding to adoption of education standards has the education world abuzz. During a speech to the National Governor’s Association, President Obama stated: I want to commend all of you for acting collectively through the National Governors Association to develop common standards that will better position our students for success.and today, I’m announcing steps to encourage and support all states to transition to college and career-ready standards on behalf of America’s students. First, as a condition of receiving access to Title I funds, …
It appears that President Obama will exempt education from his so-called spending freeze. Despite the fact that Obama already doubled the Department of Education’s budget through the Omnibus and Stimulus bills last year, he plans to continue the spending binge. The Washington Post reported yesterday: Administration officials said they could not provide a direct comparison to current elementary and secondary education spending levels, but they said federal education spending would rise overall by 6.2 percent. That would apparently be the largest percentage increase since 2003, not counting the huge infusion …
Last summer, National Economic Council director Larry Summers said that in order to be effective, any stimulus bill “must be clearly and credibly temporary.” More and more people are beginning to notice that President Barack Obama’s trillion dollar spending plan completely fails that test. The Associated Press reports today: If the government spends billions on education to help jump-start the staggering economy, what happens when things improve and schools have grown used to the largesse? … The measure making its way through Congress would achieve a long-sought goal of Obama …
