ESEA Could Save Money
A new government study suggests that smart recrafting of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) can help save taxpayers a bundle. The Government Accountability Office report, “Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue,” says the pending reauthorization of ESEA and other key education bills offer an excellent way to reduce costly, duplicate federal efforts.
“Specifically, to minimize any wasteful fragmentation and overlap among teacher quality programs, Congress may choose either to eliminate programs that are too small to evaluate cost effectively or to combine programs serving similar target groups into a larger program,” the analysts recommend. “Education has already proposed combining 38 programs into 11 programs in its reauthorization proposal, which could allow the agency to dedicate a higher portion of its administrative resources to monitoring programs for results and providing technical assistance.”
In other ESEA news, Congressional Quarterly reports that a group of moderate members of the Senate Democratic Caucus plans to introduce a series of bills in the next few weeks to jump-start the ESEA overhaul, with the goal of passing a rewrite before the start of the next school year. The 11-member group, led by Michael Bennet of Colorado and Kay Hagan of North Carolina, signed onto a set of principles for rewriting the law known as No Child Left Behind that mirror the key elements in the Obama administration’s March 2010 education blueprint.
“We know the results of doing nothing, and they are catastrophic,” Bennet said. “Rather than return to Congress and have the same tired debate about education, we’re going to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
The senators endorsed new school accountability models that reward high achievers; rules requiring the poorest- performing schools in each state to adopt one of four turnaround models; competitive grants to encourage more effective teachers; and better reporting of how schools use federal funds — all administration priorities.
Filed under: K-12 Education News, Special Features
Tags: Education Policy, Public Policy
