ARTICLE FROM THE CATO INSTITUTE RACE TO THE CRADLE BY NEAL MCCLUSKEY:

5.26.11 -- THE CATO INSTITUTE

[Statement by Donna Garner: Neal McCluskey explains in his article posted below that the Republicans missed a huge opportunity to cut the funding for Common Core Standards/Race to the Top in the Concurring Resolution. Because they did not do it then, CCS and RTTT are set and ready to strangle K-12.

Now the Obama administration is extending the federal stranglehold to our pre-K children. McCluskey’s title for his article is indeed apropos -- “Race to the Cradle.”

When are the Republicans in Congress going to stand up for their fiscally responsible campaign rhetoric and cut the appropriations for Common Core Standards and Race to the Top? This is what the Congressional House has the power to do because they have the authority over appropriations.-- Donna Garner]

Yesterday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced how $700 million in the new Race to the Top money will be employed: $200 million to get close-loser states in the last RTTT to once again jump through hoops and grovel before their federal overloards, and $500 million for a new “early-learning” obedience contest.

The first part of this is irksome in large part because many congressional GOP members — the people who are supposed to be reining in unconstitutional, out-of-control federal adventuring — voted for the continuing resolution containing this expansion of the simultaneously worthless but dictatorial Race to the Top. The potential rewards for winning states are much smaller than the first go-round — $10 million to $50 million, versus $20 million to $700 million — so the bribery might be less powerful. But it is unconstitutional, politically charged bribery nonetheless, and it most certainly did not need to happen. No one, as far as I know, was clamoring for it, except maybe for a few people in the Obama administration.

More troubling, though, is the expansion — and new focus — of RTTT into pre-kindergarten education. Apparently, Race to the Top has proven so effective in elementary and secondary education – of course, it hasn’t proven anything – that it’s clearly time to drill down even closer to the cradle. And drill it will.

While the regs for the program haven’t been written yet, the legislation that created the thing stipulates that to win money states must:

Increase the number and percentage of low-income and disadvantaged infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who are enrolled in high-quality early learning programs;
Design and implement an integrated system of high-quality early learning programs and services; and
Ensure that any use of assessments is consistent with the recommendations of the National Research Council’s reports on early childhood.

If this isn’t a recipe for ultimate federal control of pre-K, I don’t know what is (other than an effort involving even more taxpayer dough). I mean, having the Feds define “high quality” through regulation? Mandates for states to create “integrated” pre-K systems? Dictating parameters for assessing success? What next? Babysitter-in-Chief Obama himself administering the milk and cookies — er, fat-free milk and broccoli – at snack time?

That this new RTTT exists — and made it through a GOP-majority House – sure isn’t a good sign for things to come, either in education or beyond.

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To learn more about the Obama administration’s takeover of the public schools, please go to the following article:

“Rising Chorus of Voices Against Federal Takeover of U. S. Public Schools” -- by Donna Garner -- 5.16.11

http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/156088.html

5.26.11 -- THE CATO INSTITUTE

“Race to the Cradle”

[Statement by Donna Garner: Neal McCluskey explains in his article posted below that the Republicans missed a huge opportunity to cut the funding for Common Core Standards/Race to the Top in the Concurring Resolution. Because they did not do it then, CCS and RTTT are set and ready to strangle K-12.

Now the Obama administration is extending the federal stranglehold to our pre-K children. McCluskey’s title for his article is indeed apropos -- “Race to the Cradle.”