Hidden Costs of Race

On the face of it, Democratic President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top education policy is cheaper for American taxpayers than Republican President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind.

As Spencer Irvine calculated for us last summer, the former is actually one-fifth the cost of the latter, at least in federal dollars. “The cost of NCLB, according to the New American Foundation, in the year 2010 came to about $22,131,000,000,” Irvine reported. “From the year 2005 until 2010, the total cost of NCLB amounts to about $130,652,000.”

“Sadly, this isn’t all the NCLB costs because these are ‘selected programs’ and non-inclusive of all NCLB costs. As for Race to the Top, phase 1 (year 2010) cost up to $4 billion.” Yet and still, those who calculate the state costs of implementing President Obama’s education reforms come up with a much higher number.

Moreover, Race to the Top comes with an as-yet-undefined national curriculum. “Cash-strapped state education budgets have another fiscal burden looming: the cost of implementing Common Core standards,” Rachel Sheffield writes in School Reform News. “Based on a range of state estimates, a reasonable estimate of the total nationwide cost ‘would be $30 billion,’ said Liv Finne, director of the Washington Policy Institute’s education center.”

“Forty-five states and Washington, DC have adopted the Core in the past two years, largely in attempts to receive Obama administration grants.” Sheffield is an education research assistant at the Heritage Foundation

“Many states have not evaluated the cost of implementing the Core, notes a 2011 McGraw-Hill education brief, but will be working through implementation in the next three years, so by 2014 most changes will be in place,” Sheffield reports. “In the state of Washington, the total cost of implementing the standards—which includes changes to textbooks, teacher training, and state tests—will likely be more than $300 million, according to the state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.”

“For larger states such as California, the cost will be much higher.” School Reform News is published by the Heartland Institute.

“The California Department of Education estimates that it will cost the state almost $760 million to implement the Common Core,” Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, told Sheffield. “EdSource, a respected Northern California-based education-research organization, estimates the cost to be up to $1.6 billion.”

“The Obama administration has made receiving federal dollars, including Race to the Top grants, contingent on states adopting the standards, referring to them as ‘college- and career-ready’ standards and then declaring the Common Core as the only set fitting that designation,” Sheffield claims.

Indeed, Sheffield notes, “Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently said he would require states to adopt “college-and-career-ready” standards as a condition for waivers of the largest federal education law, No Child Left Behind.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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