President Obama's school plan riles lawmakers

[bijou]

Actually not just lawmakers, teachers aren't too keen either.

Race to the Top is hitting the wall.

President Barack Obama’s $4.35 billion grant competition — designed to encourage states to dramatically improve school performance — is running into resistance across the country, as state officials and teachers unions are clashing with the administration over the contest rules.

And now Congress is getting into the act — with lawmakers of both parties challenging the president’s tough-love approach to school improvement.

“There are some very tough feelings over this,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). “Some people are afraid to say it, but I’m not.”

Minnesota Rep. John Kline, the top Republican on the Education and Labor Committee, has said he will urge Congress to oppose Obama’s request for $1.35 billion to extend the program in his fiscal 2011 budget.

“We have a program here that’s not yet proven,” he said. “We haven’t figured out if $4.35 billion is being spent wisely. Why would we add $1.35 billion?”

The idea seemed simple: Hold a contest for states to compete for billions in federal aid, right at a moment when school systems are battling budget problems. To win the funding, schools would have to convince Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s team that they were prepared to instill more teacher accountability and tougher standards to help students learn.

Only two of the 41 states that applied — Tennessee and Delaware — cleared the bar, and the administration said the first leg of the competition reaffirmed the rigorous standards. “You got to show us you’re building excellence in your school system,” Obama told a crowd in Buffalo, N.Y., on Thursday.

But, just two weeks away from a June 1 deadline for the second round of funding, some states are rethinking whether it’s worth the trouble to apply — even though Duncan has said there might be 10 to 15 winners this time around.

“A number of the states are pretty discouraged because they went through a grinding process in order to get agreement on changes from state legislatures, local school districts and unions,” said Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy.

“Then cold water was thrown on them.”

Duncan has $3.4 billion left to award. But Indiana dropped its second application, after a very public spat between its public school chief and teachers unions. Vermont decided the competition wasn’t moving the state in the right direction. The Kansas State Board of Education concluded that the federal guidelines were at odds with Kansas’s culture of local control, making their chances of winning zilch. Alaska and Texas didn’t bother applying the first time.

Teachers unions — usually stalwart Democratic supporters — are staging boycotts. The Massachusetts branch of the American Federation of Teachers shunned its state’s second application because it was fed up with being blamed for underperforming schools. The Colorado Education Association, a National Education Association affiliate, also withdrew its support because it felt the state’s education commissioner had thrown teachers under the bus. ...

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37238.html#ixzz0nwCUUJgV

[The Village Idiot]

NCLB part duex

[Chris_]

But the NEA hated NCLB too.  Maybe the NEA just hates everything.  Ditch 'em.

[The Village Idiot]

But the NEA hated NCLB too.  Maybe the NEA just hates everything.  Ditch 'em.

Anything with the word accountability.

It should be illegal for government employees to lobby government. IMO.

[JohnnyReb]

We don't have the NEA in my state but we do have the kind of students that will keep us from winning anything..now if we could sepera.. nawh they won't allow that.

[The Village Idiot]

We don't have the NEA in my state but we do have the kind of students that will keep us from winning anything..now if we could sepera.. nawh they won't allow that.

The American Federation of Teachers are just as bad.

[formerlurker]

NCLB part duex

This is nothing like NCLB -- it is all about stripping control away from local governments and handing it over to each state's DOE, who is merely a puppet of the US DOE. 

Total nonsense bullsh%t.   I can't believe the education reform laws that were rammed down our throats as each state legislature, in a frenzied pace, tried to get their state laws in line to meet the qualifications of this nonsense funding.     

This was largely ignored by the press, and absolutely stunning in outrage what the results of this will be for each state's education system.    I am all for accountability, but this is WAY beyond that.  It is the attempt at total control by the federal government.