Common Core Lawsuit 2014: Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Sues Federal Government Over Education Policies
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is suing the federal government for overstepping its bounds and alleging that the public school system has been forced to adopt a single program.
"The Obama Administration has used federal grants to compel states to enter binding agreements to adopt and fully implement a single set of federally-defined content standards and to utilize assessment products created by a federally-sponsored 'consortia.' Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Education has made changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) state test review and approval process that will coerce states to adopt the federal government's preferred tests or risk billions in federal funding," according to a statement from Jindal's office.
This includes allowing waivers in exchange for adopting Common Core standards, as well as threatening a loss of funding if specific assessment tests were not adopted in order to qualify for Race to the Top grants.
Jindal filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Louisiana stating that the changes to the education policies, and programs like "Race to the Top," are "in contradiction to 50 years of Congressional policy forbidding federal direction or control of curriculum, the cornerstone of education policy," according to the lawsuit. He added that the government is in violation of the Tenth Ammendment.
In the statement, Jindal goes so far as to say the federal government has "hijacked and destroyed the Common Core initiative."
"What started out as an innovative idea to create a set of base-line standards that could be 'voluntarily' used by the states has turned into a scheme by the federal government to nationalize curriculum. Through the federally funded consortia, PARCC, along with Race to the Top grants, the federal government has coerced states into giving up local control of education," Jindal said.
Louisiana entered an agreement in 2010 to similarly give up its control to join the Race to the Top program, Jindal said in the statement.
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