FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2011 file photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, gestures while speaking in a building under construction in Washington. Loose ends and thorny partisan tensions on education await the next Congress and President Barack Obama's second term. First up is the fiscal cliff, which will slash billions from the Department of Education's budget if lawmakers don't act this year. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Obama's education agenda dominated by loose ends
FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2011 file photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, gestures while speaking in a building under construction in Washington. Loose ends and thorny partisan tensions on education await the next Congress and President Barack Obama's second term. First up is the fiscal cliff, which will slash billions from the Department of Education's budget if lawmakers don't act this year. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
By JOSH LEDERMAN
Associated Press /
November 19, 2012
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Two-thirds of schools that received School Improvement Grants showed an uptick in math and reading scores, although most of those schools were already making progress before the grants were distributed. But scores declined at more than one in four schools that had been improving the year before grants started. Duncan said turning around failing schools is a long-term process and that a single year of scores paints an incomplete picture.
Lawmakers are also eager to reclaim control of Race to the Top, the multibillion-dollar grant competition program Obama created in 2009 to prod states into changing laws and raising standards. The administration opened the competition to school districts this year, but with stimulus funds exhausted, the size of the program shrank dramatically.
‘‘With Race to the Top, and then these conditional waivers, it is bypassing Congress and the process we’re supposed to have, adding to uncertainty,’’ Republican Rep. John Kline, the House Education and the Workforce Committee chairman, said in an interview.
Teacher assessments are at the heart of another potential flashpoint. Chicago teachers walked off the job for more than a week in September, largely over demands that their evaluations be tied to student test scores. Teachers unions enthusiastically backed Obama’s re-election, but Obama’s Education Department stayed neutral on the strike, and his former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, led the fight against striking teachers.
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