Obama holds out billions for schools raising standards

Appearing before a meeting of the nation's governors, President Barack Obama called for a reauthorization and redesign of the federal governments, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly known as the No Child Left Behind Act, enacted during the presidency of George Bush.  In an effort to promote college and career ready standards for all students, Obama told the state leaders he wants to improve teacher preparation and development, upgrade classroom instruction and support high-quality assessments and he's holding out more than $5 billion dollars to states that comply. 

"America's prosperity has always rested on how well we educate our children - but never more so than today," said President Obama. "This is true for our workers, when a college graduate earns over 60 percent more in a lifetime than a high school graduate. This is true for our businesses, when according to one study; six in ten (employers) say they simply can't find qualified people to fill open positions.

As part of the Obama Administrations re-design of ESEA, his administration will require states to meet six tough standards to help high school graduates prepare for college or jobs if they hope to compete for billions in federal dollars:

• Require all states to adopt and certify they have college and career-ready standards in reading and mathematics as a condition for qualifying for Title 1 Funding, the federal dollars given to schools with socio-economically disadvantaged students,

• Include new funding priorities for states with college and career-ready standards in place as they compete for $750 million dollars in federal funds to improve teaching and learning and upgrade curriculum in reading and math,

• Encourage states, school districts and other institutions to better align teacher preparation practices and programs to teaching of college and career-ready standards, as a condition for requesting $405 million dollars for a new Teacher and Leaders Pathways program,

• Provide $400 million in grants to assist states in implementing new assessments aligned with college and career-ready standards,

• Is dedicating $1.35 billion in awards to states and school districts that have college and career-ready standards in place,

• As a condition to quality for $2.5 billion of the President's Effective Teacher and Leaders Program, states must support professional development for teachers, leaders and other school instructional staff to better align instruction to college and career-ready standards.

A fact sheet of President Obama's education goals can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/education_standard_factsheet.pdf