Gov. Perry says "no thanks" to fed funds, national curriculum standards

Americans for Prosperity commends Gov. Rick Perry for drawing a line in the sand and announcing today that he would not apply for specific education stimulus dollars which could have led to an arbitrary mandate requiring Texas to adopt national curriculum standards and tests.

“Accepting stimulus dollars comes with federal strings attached. As a former official at the U.S. Department of Education, I agree with Gov. Perry that we don’t want the federal government setting standards for Texas schools,” said Peggy Venable, Texas director of Americans for Prosperity and former White House Liaison for the Department of Education early in the Reagan Administration.

“Education should be left to the states and should not be a top-down but a bottom-up process,” said Venable. “Texas has an open, collaborative process including public hearings and input. The Lone Star State has invested considerable time and millions of dollars into curriculum development and has set some rigorous standards to which we are committed. We don’t need Washington to tell us how to run our lives here in Texas.”

The Race to the Top program is part of the stimulus plan, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The Governor’s decision is consistent with the decision not to accept Unemployment Insurance stimulus dollars. All those bailout programs have set states up for even bigger budget deficits in the future.

“Gov. Perry has been vindicated for not taking the unemployment insurance dollars last year, and is right to take a pass on these education dollars as well,” said Venable.

Under the Race to the Top program, states will likely have to demonstrate their commitment to the new standards without having a chance to closely examine the first draft. But those states could be living with these standards for the next six to ten years.

The Texas Education Agency has estimated that the state would expend $3 billion to purchase new textbooks and align the Texas curriculum to the national standards. The anticipated Race to the Top funds would provide from $350-700 million, or as little as $75 per student.


Read Gov. Perry's comments today here: http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/14147/