Is Common Core Racist? Check Out The Results

The December 2015 re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act required all states that wanted Title I money to help school districts with low-income students to develop and submit a four-year plan, under the control of the state’s education department. All state plans had to be “peer reviewed” by people chosen by the U.S. Department of Education and approved by the U.S. Secretary of Education. The bill, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, did not require or even suggest that these four-year state education plans be approved by a state’s elected legislators or by the elected local school board members in the state.

Interestingly, no state’s attorney general is on record as declaring the plan submitted by its state’s education department illegal or unconstitutional. No state attorney general pointed out that the federal government has no constitutional authority over a state’s education policies.

The federal government can require a state to be accountable via an audit for the funding it provides states for K-12 public education, mostly through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and other programs established by the federal Department of Education. (However, most of the money for K-12 — about 90 percent — comes from local and state funds provided by taxpayers in a state.) An audit enables the U.S. Department of Education to ensure that the funds Congress appropriates for K-12 education are used in the categories approved by the House and Senate appropriations committees. Audits were used for funds allotted under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act until about 2001, when the act was reauthorized by a bill called No Child Left Behind. Audits tied to disbursements of federal funds comport with common sense, but the U.S. Department of Education has no legal or statutory authority to impose educational policies or practices on states or school districts.

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