When the scores came in for last year's $3.4 billion Race to the Top competition, Education Secretary Arne Duncan was "surprised and upset" that Colorado and Louisiana had been left out of the winners' circle.
Now, with a smaller $200 million in hand, this is Duncan's chance to make it up to those two states.
Proposed rules released last week spell out how the nine finalists can get a piece of that smaller jackpot. And unlike the first two rounds of the competition, there will be no outside judges determining winners and losers. This time, it's up to the department to pick.
That means there are clear favorites, and not-so-favorites. If you remember, the finalists that did not win were: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.
In addition to Colorado and Louisiana, it seems sensible to add Illinois to the favorites category. After all, Duncan praised the state in May for doing "something truly remarkable, and every state committed to education reform should take notice." That was after the legislature passed a sweeping education bill to alter how teachers in the state are hired, evaluated, and granted tenure...
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Race to Top Runners-Up: Favorites and Underdogs
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I continue to be both baffled and disappointed that my tax dollars have become some sort of lottery payoff run by the feds as a reward for the state which seems to prostitute itself in presenting the most politicaly acceptable and trendy magic bullet to education reform. All this racing to the top has resulted in an unbridled mess in our state whereby we are expected to furnish the largess of academic success to our state leaders who bought the race to the top lottery tickets but didn't have the winning numbers yet expect 24K gold service and results from a losing ticket.
It has become difficult to even count much less track the multitude of initiatives which have been thrust upon teachers over the last two years on a monthly and even weekly basis by our state educational leadership; most without even a knowledgable State Department of Education to explain them, the resources to sustain them, but most certainly a never ending flow of media announcements to maintain them. All the teachers are left with are the ever helpful "toolboxes" and webinars upon which to we must use to unbridle our pedagogy and minds.
There is a growing disconnect between the realitiy of school operation in this state and the Frankfort vision being piped in from North Carolina and Washington. When reality sets in we will see the exodus of yet another commissioner to bigger and better things beyond the Commonwealth coupled with a lament that his initiatives were unsuccessful due to the ongoing backwardness of our educators.
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