But that's not going to fly, department officials say. If Congress does not rewrite the law, either Education Secretary Arne Duncan will enforce the existing law, which he has called "broken," or he will allow states to earn waivers in "exchange for reform." (That's plan B.) There is no plan C.Note that states are still wondering exactly what Plan B will look like and that Rep. Kline is still waiting to hear back from the Secretary of Education for more information (past Kline's July 1 deadline). Given that many of the Obama administration's education policies have been dubbed "NCLB on steroids," I think we can safely say that this puts states between a rock and a hard place.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Whiplash warning
Remember how the Department of Education said it'd be looking at waivers for NCLB? Remember how Representative Kline asked which branch of government they thought they were? On the heels of last's week's announcements by Idaho, then Montana and South Dakota that they would NOT be raising the NCLB numbers this year, the Department of Ed came out to say that they'd just better:
Touche. :)
ReplyDeleteWell, the states can say to the Federal Government, "go screw yourselves." The states can direct their representatives in the Congress and Senate to reaffirm that. Of course that would mean that the states would have to tell the Federal Government to take it's money and shove it too, but sometimes you have to do what's right not what's easy.
ReplyDeleteKirsten: count this under "I'd love not to be right on this one."
ReplyDeleteJim, it would be REALLY interesting to see how the fed handled that. Presumably, they'd pull all the ed money; I wonder if they'd pull things like school lunch money (as that comes from the Ag department)?