The Federal Hand behind Common Core
Crisis Magazine – Peg Luksik –
11/5/2013
In Pennsylvania’s Race to the Top Phase Two
grant application, submitted in May 2010, the State Board of Education told the
federal government that if they received the standards by June 2, 2010, they
would adopt them by July 1, 2010. They kept that promise, tying every
public and charter school student in the Commonwealth to standards that they
had not even seen when they made the commitment.
“Common Core is a state-led
initiative.” This sentence is among the
most repeated pitch lines of those selling Common Core. It is an
effective sales pitch, but is it true?
The answer lies in the maze
of money and regulation tying federal and state departments of education
together.
The money trail for Common
Core begins in 2009, with the passage of the American Reinvestment and Recovery
Act, commonly called the Stimulus Bill. Among the bill’s many provisions
was a $53.6 billion appropriation to the U.S. Department of Education, called
the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Of that amount, $4.35 billion was set
aside for the Race to the Top initiative.
States had to access the
funds in a prescribed order. First was the Stabilization fund program.
In order to receive these
funds, states had to assure the federal government that they would adopt
“rigorous college and career ready standards.” The elements of the
standards were dictated by the federal government in the America COMPETES Act,
and as part of their application for Stabilization funds the states had to sign
an assurance page that specifically required them to align their state programs
to the language of that federal law.
The stabilization funds were
awarded in two phases, with states submitting an application outlining their
plans to adopt the standards to receive the first phase, and then submitting a
progress report showing that they were actually completing those plans in order
to receive the second phase of their stabilization grant. THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION HAD TO
APPROVE EACH STATE’S PLAN BEFORE PHASE TWO FUNDS WERE AWARDED, EFFECTIVELY
GIVING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER EACH STATE’S EDUCATION PROGRAMS.
States who had successfully
completed the Stabilization grant process could then compete for Race to the
Top funds. This requirement was explained in question A-4 of Race to
the Top Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions, published by the U.S.
Department of Education on May 27, 2010.
Please check out the entire article for additional links regarding Common Core.
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