New Secretary of Education John King must have thought he could follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Arne Duncan and tell the states and districts what to do. Congress made it clear in the Every Student Succeeds Act that it was curtailing the Secretary’s power. King is now overseeing the drafting of new regulations to implement ESSA, and Senator Lamar Alexander–who led the effort to write ESSA–didn’t like what he saw. He gave King a strong reprimand at Senate hearings yesterday.

 

Here is a report from a Knoxville newspaper on some of their exchanges:

 

“U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander angrily accused the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday of blatantly ignoring part of the new school reform law that Congress passed last year with overwhelming bipartisan support.

 

“In an unusual public scolding, Alexander told Education Secretary John B. King Jr. the department is not adhering to a key section of the law that relates to funding for low-income schools.

 

“Not only is what you’re doing against the law,” Alexander said during a Senate committee hearing, “the way you’re trying to do it is against another provision in the law.”
“King tried to assure Alexander the Education Department is not circumventing the law, but is merely proposing regulations to give guidance to states and local school districts. But Alexander was not convinced.

 

“I can read,” he said bluntly…..”

 

“At Tuesday’s hearing, Alexander accused the Department of Education of overstepping its authority and trying to work around a provision that says federal funding must be used to supplement state and local spending on education.

 

“Another section of the law requires comparable spending between Title I schools — those with large numbers of disadvantaged students — and schools that are not Title I.

 

The “comparability” provision has been in federal law since 1970, and Congress did not change it when the new school reform law passed last year.

 

“But Alexander charged the department is trying to implement new regulations that would require equal, not comparable, spending per pupil. He also accused the department of trying to dictate the methodology that local school districts must use when calculating whether funding between schools is comparable — a move he said is not allowed under the law.

 

“King disputed that. The department is not requiring any particular methodology, he said, but is simply trying to give schools the flexibility to measure the goal of comparable funding.
“How can you sit there and say that?” Alexander asked, arguing that the proposed regulations clearly dictate how states must go about measuring comparability.

 

“Alexander warned he would use “every power of Congress” to make sure the law is implemented the way it was written, even if it meant using the appropriations process to block the regulations or overturning them once they are final.

 

“If the department tries to force states to follow regulations that violate the law, “I’ll tell them to take you to court,” he said.”

 

As Peter Greene wrote, Senator Alexander took John King to the woodshed. Greene writes that Senator Alexander noted “that a December Politico story quoted Duncan saying that USED lawyers are smarter than the lawmakers. But “we in Congress are smart enough to anticipate your lawyers’ attempts to rewrite the law.””