Boehner, Enzi Letter to U.S. Department of Education Clarifies State & Local Control of High School Curricula

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. House Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY) today wrote to the U.S. Department of Education to clarify that the math and science initiative in the Deficit Reduction Act – which the House is expected to consider today – ensures that state and local authorities will continue to make decisions over high school curricula and does not give the Secretary of Education any new authority over such decisions.  Boehner and Enzi issued the following statement:

“This initiative is intended to encourage high-achieving high school students to study math, science, and critical languages in college and provide them with additional grant assistance beyond what is offered through the Pell Grant program.  We want to make clear that this proposal continues to preserve the role of state and local authorities in making all decisions over school curricula.  Moreover, as our letter notes, existing federal law already specifies that the Secretary does not retain any authority to dictate high school curricula in any fashion.   We agree that decisions over school curricula are best made by state and local authorities and firmly believe this math and science initiative is consistent with that approach.” 

(The full text of Boehner and Enzi’s letter follows) 

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February 1, 2006

The Honorable Margaret Spellings

Secretary

U.S. Department of Education

400 Maryland Ave, SW

Washington, D.C.

Dear Secretary Spellings:

We are writing in regard to the Academic Competitiveness Grants in Title VIII, Section 8003 of the conference report to S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

This initiative provides incentives and assistance for Pell-eligible students who have taken rigorous coursework in high school in preparation for college.  It is intended to help students who have gone above and beyond the basic high school requirements and provide them additional grant assistance for college beyond that offered through the Pell Grant program.

Some concern has arisen that this initiative will allow the Secretary to become involved in establishing high school curriculum.  We want to be very clear this was neither the intention nor the effect of the language in this bill.  The Secretary’s only role in this process is to recognize that states or local educational agencies or other schools, including private, charter and home schools, have, in fact, established what they consider to be a rigorous coursework requirement.

Not only does the language in this bill not give the Secretary any authority to establish curriculum, we assert that federal law prohibits this.  The General Education Provisions Act, Section 438 provides that,

“No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resource, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, or to require the assignment or transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance.”

We believe this language prohibits the Secretary from establishing any curriculum in any school, public or private.  The Secretary’s role is merely to recognize that the state educational agency, local educational agency, or school has established what a rigorous secondary school program of study means for that state, district or school.

Further, we have heard some additional concerns that this initiative may exclude students attending private schools, charter schools and home schools.  We again want to be perfectly clear that the intent of this language is to offer competitiveness grants to those students who qualify by completing a rigorous course of study, regardless of the school they attended.  Simply put, all students from public, charter, private and home schools are eligible as long as the coursework they study meets the rigorous standards established by the state, local educational agency or school.

We hope this letter proves helpful during implementation and thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,