As Roy points out in his blog post, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to “teach kids as early as kindergarten about climate change and to prepare them for a workforce filled with ?green jobs.?

As this CSNNews.com article explains:

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan vowed on Tuesday that his
department would work to make American children into “good
environmental citizens” through federally subsidized school programs
beginning as early as kindergarten that teach children about climate
change and prepare them “to contribute to the workforce through green
jobs.”

The federal government has been subsidizing programs covering science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM grants).

However, as it has been described, it sounds as if Secretary Duncan and friends want to get far more specific in directing K-12 curriculum than just supporting general subjects.

This is important because there’s a longstanding prohibition on the federal government interfering in curriculum decisions. Granted, Congress could always pass legislation that supersedes the following prohibition:

20 U.S.C. ? 3403

(a) Rights of Local Governments and Educational Institutions
It is the intention of the Congress in the establishment of the Department to protect the rights of State and local governments and public and private educational institutions in the areas of educational policies and administration of programs and to strengthen and improve the control of such governments and institutions over their own educational programs and policies. The establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the Federal Government over education or diminish the responsibility for education which is reserved to the States and the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the States.

(b) Curriculum, Administration, and Personnel; Library Resources
No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, over any accrediting agency or association, or over the selection or content of library resources, textbooks, or other instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, except to the extent authorized by law.

Whether this is a legal issue will depend on the details of the program that is proposed.