Having long ago exhausted his patience with the Constitution, President Barack Obama has officially announced that his Department of Education is unilaterally rewriting federal education law.
In August, the DOE announced its preliminary decision to grant waivers from many of the requirements of No Child Left Behind to states that meet certain DOE-approved conditions. The constitutional problems with this blatant usurpation of congressional authority have been rightly assailed by many critics. Equally troubling from the official announcement is this new evidence of an obvious federal intent to impose on recalcitrant states the newly minted Common Core Standards — and the mendacity surrounding the effort.
As several commentators have detailed, the Common Core Standards were developed by governmental and corporate elites under the auspices of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The feds, though not officially involved in the effort, enthusiastically embraced the standards — to the extent of denying Race to the Top funding to any state that refused to adopt them.
When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the waiver program, he set off much speculation about whether the granting of a waiver would be contingent on a state’s adoption of the standards. This possibility troubled “conservative” proponents of the standards, such as the Fordham Institute’s Chester Finn, who recognized the political dangers of foisting ever more federal mandates on the states in exchange for NCLB waivers.
Apparently mindful of such warnings, in mid-August Secretary Duncan proclaimed unequivocally that states would not have to adopt the standards to be eligible for an NCLB waiver. Duncan stated that the DOE would be “happy to work with” any state that maintains high standards, whether Common Core or otherwise. Of course, he noted, such non-Common-Core standards would have to be verified, perhaps by having a state’s postsecondary institutions approve them.
Despite Duncan’s assurances, the DOE’s recent announcement of the official waiver process makes it clear that, for all practical purposes, a state seeking an NCLB waiver must adopt the Common Core Standards.
What we have here, it appears, is the DOE’s continued effort to bribe or bully states into accepting DOE-approved standards.
Maybe the “conservative” proponents of the standards should be less concerned with allying themselves with federal bureaucrats and special interests and more concerned with upholding constitutional principles.
Jane Robbins is a senior fellow at the American Principles Project. Betty Peters is a member of the Alabama State Board of Education.
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