CAP Expert Jeremy Ayers Discusses How Proposed Legislation Would Allow States to Cut Assistance to Students in Need
Reforming and improving America’s public schools will take dynamic policies that can function effectively at federal, state, and local levels. We need policies with a national vision for public education, and with enough flexibility for the individual states to pursue that vision in schools.
Too much flexibility at the state level can endanger that national vision, however, and dash the hopes of many Americans for their children’s education and future. Rep. John Kline (R-MN) recently proposed the State and Local Funding Flexibility Act, which would give states and school districts broad flexibility to spend federal money. In a recent article, CAP Senior Education Policy Analyst Jeremy Ayers criticizes the proposed law, arguing that it gives the states too free a rein.
“The Flexibility Act would allow districts to cut or eliminate funding for low-income students, English language learners, and afterschool programs by moving money out of those programs,” Ayers writes. “The result is that groups of children may have to compete against each other for funding. If passed, this bill would dismantle decades of reliable federal investment in the education of disadvantaged children.”
The bill would allow states to pull funding out of assistance programs for America’s most vulnerable students, increase the administrative burdens of states, and leave existing problems unsolved in No Child Left Behind. The act would leave many children behind, and harm efforts to turnaround low-performing schools.
Click the link above to read the entire article. Click here to read more about the CAP plan to reform the American public education system.