The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

In a speech today before the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, President Obama said it is time to reform U.S. education by adopting uniform achievement standards, increasing funding for early childhood education and high schools, and rewarding good teachers.

"The relative decline of American education is untenable for our economy, it's unsustainable for our democracy, it's unacceptable for our children — and we can't afford to let it continue," said Obama.

To implement the president's vision, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told the Washington Post last week that he plans to use the education money in the recently passed economic recovery law to encourage school districts to adopt innovative policies and programs that have been proven to better educate students, including lengthening the school day, rewarding good teachers, and adopting uniform achievement standards.

"We share President Obama and Secretary Duncan's commitment to ensuring that education funding, and especially the new funding provided by the Recovery Act, support real reforms that will actually reach every child in America and help provide them with a first-rate education," said David Goldberg, a senior counsel at LCCR.   

In 2000, the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) created the "Blueprint for Student Success" to reform its schools and better educate its students. SDUSD is the eighth largest urban school district in the nation and has a high concentration of minorities and low-income students.

Prior to the plan, schools in the district struggled with low college enrollment, a high dropout rate, and a graduation rate of only 67 percent. The plan created immediate results for elementary schools, but results at the high school level took a little longer.

With at least 26 states enacting or proposing major budget cuts to K-12 education spending, the money for education in the economic recovery package that President Obama signed into law today could have a huge impact on struggling states and local school districts.

A January 2009 report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA shows that amid the current national climate of anticipation and hope, the U.S. is sliding backward toward segregated and highly unequal schools.

Professor Gary Orfield, the author of "Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge," commented that "it would be a tragedy if the country assumed from the Obama election that the problems of race have been solved, when many inequalities are actually deepening."

The Obama administration signaled this week that it is making reauthorization and strengthening of the main federal education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a priority for 2010. The ESEA was last reauthorized in 2002 as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).