» Interview with Margaret Spellings (Evan Smith, Texas Monthly)
Well, if one were a critic of No Child Left Behind, one would say “enough” begins with as much as you mandate. A criticism that has come your way is that you put in place a program with certain mandates that cost X but then only partially fund it and tell the states, basically, “Deal with it.”
Federal policy works like this: If you want to take our money, these are conditions that have to be met. For the first time in the history of the world, we put a real condition in place: grade-level achievement by 2014. You and I agree that’s quite a modest thing to ask for.
Some might even say you’re slow-playing it.
Yeah, although in the education community you hear just the opposite: “Oh, my God! Do you know how many fill-in-the-blank kinds of kids we have in Texas? There’s no way we can get them up to grade level.” If you want our money, these are the rules of the game.
Right. But again, the states might fairly come back to you and say, “Okay, we get it. If you’re going to give us the money, we have to do what you tell us to do. But you’re not giving us the money—you’re giving us half the money. We have to find the other half ourselves.”
We have been a minority investor in public education at the federal level forever, and that will continue to be the case. It’s 8.3 percent. The bulk of the resources has and always will come from the states.
Do you think that’s an okay state of affairs?
I think it’s the right calibration based on the policy we now have. We have a system that says to states, because they are the primary investors, “You set the standards. You devise the assessments around them. You decide what a passing score is. You tell us your graduation rate and how many kids have to congregate before the group of students even counts for accountability purposes.”
Posted by Kevin Whited on 08 June 2008, 09:04 PM
Filed under: General, Education/Academia, American Politics
Positive votes: 12 of 33 | Vote (+ / -)
Citation: Sphere: Related Content | Technorati | Bloglines | Add This
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