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Topic subject Obama Coaxes States to Change With School Dollars
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4131605#41316054131605, Obama Coaxes States to Change With School Dollars
Posted by joeycola on Wed Nov-04-09 04:03 AM
Source: abc
new. Arne Duncan has hordes of millions to privatize schools and he is on a roll.
Obama Coaxes States to Change With School Dollars
Obama uses stimulus money to coax states to embrace his school agenda
Using stimulus dollars as bait, President Barack Obama is coaxing states to rewrite education laws and cut deals with unions as they compete for $5 billion in school reform grants, the most money a president has ever had for overhauling schools. And it may end up going to only a few states.
In Wisconsin, where Obama will visit Wednesday, lawmakers are poised to change a law to boost their state's chances. Nine other states have taken similar steps.
And states can't even apply for the money yet.
"There is an appetite out there for change," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"There's been really dramatic movement in a number of states," said Duncan, who will travel to Madison, Wis., with the president. "This was the goal, but we didn't know if anyone was going to respond."
Respond they have.................................
No president has ever had that much money for schools at his discretion. Only Duncan — not Congress — has control over who gets it. And only some states, perhaps 10 to 20, will actually get the money.
Obama will use the trip to Wisconsin to call attention to the actions states are taking, one year after his election, to put his vision of reform in place, Melody Barnes, Obama's domestic policy director, told reporters Wednesday on a conference call.
Obama sees the test score data and charter schools, which are publicly funded but independent of local school boards, as solutions to the problems that plague public education.
The national teachers' unions disagree.......
Read more:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/WireStory?id=8987541&page=2Something is very very wrong with this picture.