One of the highlights of American education is state and local control of our schools and curriculum. In recent years, there has been an increase in federal intrusion into education matters as the national government has increased the number of dollars passed on for special programs. But this new development seems to go beyond that – and raises a new issue that troubles me.

Millions of Americans are marching, blogging, calling Congress, E-mailing friends, and writing to newspapers to say that President Obama and Congress are expanding government too far, too fast. We need to do more, because itÂ’s clear that theyÂ’re not getting the message. The latest example: the House of Representatives is preparing to put the Department of Education into the business of creating educational curriculum for American students.

This week the House is scheduled to approve H.R. 3221, an education lending bill that CBO reports will increase the deficit by $50 billion. The bill includes a little-known provision to give the Secretary of Education $500 million - to be provided to any entity he deems “appropriate” - to develop and disseminate free and “freely available” online courses.

Now these courses will be online, and will presumably be national in their availability. And therein lies the problem. What standards will be used in designing these courses? Who will make this determination? Will states (and their local school districts) be required to accept these courses for credit, even if the content does not match up with their state standards in the subject area? What will this do for graduation requirements in states like Texas, which is preparing to begin a new testing regime that involves “end of course” exams for core courses and mandates that students accrue a certain number of points in each core area in order to graduate? Will passing one or more of these courses enable a student to avoid meeting that requirement for graduation? Are these courses to be designed to create a de facto NATIONAL set of standards to which states will be pressured to adhere? I think these are questions that must be answered before we proceed any further down this road, so that we can have a true debate on the matter both within the education community and in the public at large.

Posted by: Greg at 12:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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