U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan apparently told governors at a meeting yesterday that the Obama administration wants to tie billions of dollars in annual Title I aid for low-income students to whether states adopt standards judged to be “college- and career-ready,” my colleague Lesli Maxwell is reporting over at State EdWatch.
President Barack Obama is meeting today with most of the nation’s governors at the White House. During that session, he’s expected to share specific proposals for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (known in its latest iteration as the No Child Left Behind Act), with a heavy emphasis on states adopting the common academic standards that have been drafted in an initiative led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.
Secretary Duncan apparently explained at his meeting with governors that if a state didn’t adopt the common standards, it could still continue to receive Title I aid, as long the state developed standards that are deemed college- and career-ready.
The news comes as key lawmakers are aiming to jump-start the process of reauthorizing the ESEA, with the first of a series of hearings to be held by the House Education and Labor Committee, my colleague Michele McNeil reports in an Education Week story. In a joint letter, Democrats and Republicans on the panel pledged to hold a “bipartisan, open, and transparent” process to rewrite the law.