For years, Democrats wanted a larger role for the federal government in education for two reasons: equitable resources and civil rights.
Arne Duncan has managed to sour many Democrats on an expanded role for the federal government by abandoning those two goals and instead pushing an agenda of federal control over curriculum, instruction, testing, and teacher evaluation. Functions that once belonged to states and districts have been taken over by Arne’s wishes, not even by federal law. States lose Arne’s waiver from NCLB’s impossible mandate for 100% proficiency if they don’t do what Arne wants. His preference for charter schools and TFA and high-stakes testing is clear. His dictatorial style has ignored equity and civil rights.
John Kline, leader of the House Education Committee, said in an interview that his top priority was revising NCLB and reducing the federal role. Ten years ago, Democrats and educators would have objected. No more.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
John Kline is one of the main reasons we keep throwing money at for profit schools with credits that are not transferable. He is invested in these corporations, leads the House Education Committee, and he feels he entitled to his share of pork. At this point I can’t see supporters of public education trusting either Republicans, Democrats, federal or state governments. The conservatives, neoliberals and crazies are everywhere!
Agreed. I don’t think it has anything to do with ideology anymore. It’s just corruption and capture all the way down:
“Kline, USA Today reported over the summer, “saw a dramatic upsurge in campaign contributions from for-profit colleges in recent months,” at the same time that he has advanced a bill that would shield for-profit colleges from greater accountability for waste, fraud, and abuse.”
It’s everywhere. For a while I thought state attorneys general might be the last line of defense but it turns out a lot of them are captured too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidhalperin/charged-with-protecting-s_b_4110906.html
Given the Republican’s anti-teacher track record, it is more likely we’ll see the nuttiness at the Federal level, times fifty.
I am not as pessimistic. This may be a part of the Ed agenda on which we can agree.
We can agree on the rhetoric but we need to be cautious and read the fine print.
Caveat emptor, eh!
If the GOP steps into the public education vacuum created by Obama, Bill Gates and Duncan, several million votes could swing from the Democratic Party to the GOP—-but to succeed, the GOP would also have to stop offering support to close public schools, destroy teachers’ unions and open corporate Charters staffed with TFA recruits.
…and that’s unlikely to happen any time soon. But given what happened at the state levels I would be surprised if any urban areas retain elected school boards by 2016…. the ALEC playbook doesn’t think much of elected boards…
True dat.
I left the party over it and I know I’m not the only one.
Local control scares me a little; but it’s far easier to influence and excite change on a small scale than it is to fight the federal DOE. Any chance we will get rid of it, I wonder?
The overreach of this particular administration is the worst case scenario of Democrat’s allegiance to big government. It really has made the party look bad. It is however an excellent wake up call to those who naively believe the government should fix everything. Republican’s weak spot is that they are insular. Democrat’s are not insular but they certainly presume they know everything. Nobody likes or enjoys the company of a know it all.
I heard on radio news this AM that Jeb Bush is starting to campaign for 2016’s election. Not surprising, of course, but oh dear.
What’s his campaign slogan?
“Three’s The Charm”?
“Dynasty or Democracy? Now you don’t have to choose.”
Three’s The Trial and Tribulation!
He should listen to his mother. At one point she commented that two Bushes in the white House was enough.
Off topic, but I recieved a letter from TFA today asking me to donate money “to unlock a child’s future.” The starting donation level was $1000 and went as high as $10,000!
The copy concludes with “Sponsor the education that sets their hearts on fire.”
Is this a new fundraising tactic?
By the way, I am a public school parent who has never shown any interest in TFA. I save my donation dollars for my children’s school!!!
Send it back with a big NO on it. TFA gets charged for postage, the USPS gets business. Win-win.
Great idea!
IF the Feds lose control, we can only hope that ALEC and their cookie cutter laws also meet a similar fate.
My state has done a fine job mucking things up on their own.
How did people in my state react? They didn’t – the total turnout for the mid-term elections last month was about 44%.
Rand Paul, Hillary, or Jeb Bush? Who would do the least damage to education?
Putting those three together makes the hair stand up on my neck…Pretty effing scary!
Worst case scenario right? Hopefully we’ll get better options
I’d love a less invasive federal role. Right now, all of the nasty stuff coming down on us in my state (WA) is all fed-driven. We’d be OK without the Feds – some fairly level heads in charge at this time. I know the same can’t be said for other states, where at times the one thing keeping them from going off the deep end was the Feds. And then there’s Arizona…..
RTTT’s overreach and the CCSS backlash will play into the hands of privatizers and ALEC… and if the GOP DOES increase funding for special education it will warm the hearts of local property taxpayers and school boards who have absorbed costs for special education for decades. A shrewd move!
I don’t know how one of DC’s biggest backers of for-profit colleges is somehow “good” for public education:
“Years of double-digit tuition hikes across higher ed had created a $1 trillion pile of student debt. Students weren’t just personally screwed. The purchasing power of an entire generation was being wiped from the economy, since it would be years before they could afford a car or a home.
Members of both the House and Senate wanted to give students the same interest rates the feds offered to big banks. At the time, that was less than 1 percent.
Others, like Congresswoman Rep. Karen Bass (D-California), sought to cap all federal student loans at 3.4 percent.
Kline had a different notion of reform.
He wanted to base rates on the yield of the 10-year Treasury note — with a 2.5 percent bump to make lending more lucrative.”
Admittedly there’s a lot of people in DC purchased by the for-profit college industry, but he’s really a stand out.
We are not so much in need of education reform as we are in need of what the NYTimes calls “ethics reform”
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2014/10/john_klines_descent_from_patriot_to_for-profit_college_bodyguard-profit_college_bodyguard.php?page=3
If Klein wants to increase funding for IDEA AND reduce the role of the federal govt, what does he plan for IDEA reauthorization? Without federal law IDEA, the legal rights and protections for students with disabilities would not exist.
Ironically, Arne’s DoEd has essentially deregulated oversight of SPED and turned compliance with IEP’s into entering test scores into state & national data bases. Kids who can’t even read a test or understand a keyboard are having their IEP’s violated across the country. The tests are being used to exclude rather than include. Discrimination based on disability is a feature, not a flaw of Duncan’s DoEd.
The essential question is what are R’s & D’s bipartisan plans for ‘removing’ the federal govt from education oversight regarding IDEA? Let’s not let more $ be the trade off for rights and protections guaranteed in IDEA.
Several years ago I filed a FOIA with the Department of Education asking how many teachers were employed by DOE. They couldn’t answer the question. From that perspective, I would ask if we want decisions about our children’s education to come from bureaucrats whose education background is dubious at best.
The Founders did not provide a role for the federal government in the education of our students. It is not even mentioned in the Constitution. That role is left to the states and local school boards who know best the needs of their students. Not a conference of states but each state individually. Federal control leads only to more control, not better education. Witness NCLB, RTTT, Common Core and the myriad of mandates discharged from Washington.
No Child Left Behind has always appeared to be a program destined for failure. Not all children learn the same way and at the same pace. Although it is argued that Common Core is a product of the states, compliance with it allows states to apply for Race-To-The-Top money, whereby the government manipulates around the law and “bribes” the states to comply with Common Core standards. Money sent to Washington is used to control, not educate.
I believe the DOE is a drag on the education of our children. It is a costly administrative and bureaucratic layer that takes money away from our children. The $60-100 billion budgeted for the DOE could best be appropriated and administered by the states instead. (Corruption at the state level is no worse than that at DC’s level). And education is a state function.
I am not one to “blame the teachers first”. Teachers are the most dedicated of professionals and without their skills and enthusiasm our children would now be in a hopeless state. I appreciate them, having lived with one for the past 30 years, observing the long hours she put in to keep their inquisitive minds active. For her, 8-3 was just the start of the day. What I want for her and subsequently for the students is the freedom from onerous programs and regulations, so that learning is fun and teaching is rewarding and rewarded. All this government intervention is self-defeating and frustrating to teachers, parents and most importantly, the kids. Let the money stay at home where it can be spent more judiciously and with more concern than the federal government can dispense.
So yes, I want a substantially diminished role for the federal government in education.
I read about this as well somewhere else. It looks like Republicans are turning this into a states’ rights issue, which could be good for some, not for others. I’m not sure the Republicans are interested in education, as much as they are hung up on states’ rights!!
It’s not at all clear to me what point you’re trying to make. I didn’t mention Republicans in my own statement. In any event, states’ rights have never been an exclusively Republican or Democratic position on any issue.
My view is that the federal government has overstepped its authority in the area of education. Whether they can accomplish what they propose to do with the existing personnel is open to question, notwithstanding whether
the function is in the state or federal purview. I happen to believe it’s a state function. Further, I am very interested in the education of our children regardless of my political affiliation. The programs initiated by the federal government that I speak about are a burden on state and local authorities without a commensurate benefit to the kids.
I was not responding to you. I was responding to the original post. Somehow it was posted underneath yours.
The GOP is also full speed ahead for corporate Charters and vouchers taking over teaching our children—but at last if the DOE and the feds are removed from the battle, the fake Pub-Ed reform war will be fought state by state just like the abortion/right to life issue.
Now that’s something with which I can agree.