Conclusions and Recommendations Joseph A. Califano, Jr., former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare once wrote, “In its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas.”142 Unfortunately, in three short years, the present Administration has placed the nation on the road to a national curriculum. By leveraging funds through its Race to the Top Fund and the Race to the Top Assessment Program, the Department has accelerated the implementation of common standards in English language arts and mathematics and the development of common assessments based on those standards. By PARCC’s and SBAC’s admission, these standards and assessments will create content for state K-12 curriculum and instructional materials. The Department has simply paid others to do that which it is forbidden to do. This tactic should not inoculate the Department against the curriculum prohibitions imposed by Congress. The authors understand that the Common Core standards started as an initiative—of the NGA Center and the CCSSO, but the Department’s decision to cement the use of the standards and assessment consortia through ESEA waiver conditions—a power that Congress has not granted in the waiver statute—changes matters considerably. Given the intense desire of most states to escape the strict accountability requirements of the ESEA, most states will agree to the Department’s conditions in order to obtain waivers. By accepting the Department’s conditions, these states will be bound indefinitely to the Common Core standards, PARCC-SBAC assessments, and the curriculum and instructional modules that arise from those assessments. As already evidenced by the eleven states that have already applied for waivers, most states will accept the Common Core standards and the PARCC-SBAC assessment consortia conditions. Once this consummation occurs, the Department will not permit a state to walk away from that commitment without the state losing its coveted waivers. It is also highly doubtful that states will turn away from the Common Core standards and assessments after making the heavy investment that these initiatives require. In the view of the authors, these efforts will necessarily result in a de facto national curriculum and instructional materials effectively supervised, directed, or controlled by the Department through the NCLB waiver process. In light of these conclusions, this paper makes seven recommendations: • First, Congress should immediately pass legislation clarifying that the Department cannot impose conditions on waivers requested by states under the ESEA. • Second, the appropriate committees of Congress should conduct hearings on the Department’s implementation of the Race to the Top Fund, the Race to the Top Assessment Program, and the Conditional NCLB Waiver Plan to ascertain the Department’s compliance with GEPA, the DEOA, and the ESEA. • Third, Congress should review the curriculum and related prohibitions in GEPA, the DEOA, and the ESEA to determine whether legislation should be introduced to strengthen the ban on federal involvement in elementary and secondary curriculum, programs of instruction, and instructional materials. • Fourth, Congress should request the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a comprehensive review of the elementary and secondary education programs of the Department, including programs implemented under the ARRA and ESEA, to identify those that fail to comply with the GEPA, the DEOA, and the ESEA prohibitions, with the GAO submitting to the chairmen and ranking members of the appropriate committees a written report with specific findings by no later than September 30, 2012. • Fifth, the Congress should require the Secretary to undertake a review of the Department’s regulations appearing at Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, as well as guidance relating to elementary and secondary programs to identify those that fail to comply with GEPA, the DEOA, and the ESEA, with the Secretary submitting to the chairmen and ranking members of the appropriate committees a written report with specific findings by no later than September 30, 2012. • Sixth, Governors, State Superintendents of Education, State Boards of Education, and State Legislators should reconsider their respective states’ decisions to participate in the CCSSI, the Race to the Top Fund, and the Race to the Top Assessment Program. • Seventh, the eleven states that have applied for waivers under the Department’s Conditional NCLB Waiver Plan should amend their waiver applications to delete the Department’s four non-statutory conditions; states that apply in round two should omit the four conditions from their applications and include only the statutory requirements of 20 U.S.C. § 7861. * Robert S. Eitel is a founding member of Talbert & Eitel, PLLC, an education and employment law firm in Washington, D.C. He advises clients on education-related legislation, regulations, guidance, and cases. His clients include institutions of higher education, charter school organizations, accrediting agencies, professional and trade associations, advocacy groups, and non-profit entities. From 2006 to 2009, Mr. Eitel served as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education. ** Kent D. Talbert is a co-founder of Talbert & Eitel, PLLC. He advises clients on education-related legal matters. He served as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education from 2006-2009. As General Counsel, Mr. Talbert served as the chief legal adviser to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, providing advice on a broad range of legal and policy matters, including the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), and the drafting and implementation of regulations under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). fed-soc.org/publications/detail/the-road-to-a-national-curriculum-the-legal-aspects-of-the-common-core-standards-race-to-the-top-and-conditional-waivers
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 23:16:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015