Enforcing School Standards ,
at Last
Washington has historically talked tough about requiring the states to reform their school systems in exchange for federal aid, and then caved in to the status quo when it came time to enforce the deal. The Obama administration broke with that tradition this week.
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It announced that only two states — Delaware and Tennessee — would receive first-round grants under the $4.3 billion Race to the Top iniative, which is intended to support ambitious school reforms at the state and local levels. The remaining states will need to retool their applications and raise their sights or risk being shut out of the next round.
That includes New York State, which ranked a sad 15th out of 16 finalists.
The Education Department evaluated grant application from 40 states and the District of Columbia, based on how they planned to meet more than three dozen goals.
To get the maximum number of points, states needed to show that they could build a clear consensus among unions and school districts for programs that would improve training for teachers and principals, turn around failing schools, encourage the creation of high-performing charter schools, create data-driven instructional systems and promote high-quality science instruction.
Beyond that, the education secretary, Arne Duncan, made clear from the start that the process would favor states that proposed ways of taking student achievement into account in teacher evaluations.
The politically powerful teachers’ unions reacted fiercely and predictably to this provision. But the two winning states dispensed with the issue with strong teacher effectiveness laws. The Delaware plan requires teachers and principals to show growth in student achievement as a condition of receiving favorable ratings and allows schools to remove “ineffective” teachers from the classroom. Tennessee passed a strong law mandating that 50 percent of a teacher’s or principal’s evaluation be based on student achievement data.
By passing these laws, the winning states made clear that the political leaders intended to move forward with reform whether or not localities and unions objected. Rather than be left behind, both parties supported the state’s application. Some states that had strong applications, including Louisiana, were shut out partly because of weak proposals in science or other areas.
New York lost a lot of ground because the Legislature failed to lift the cap on the number of charter schools, which are run with public money but are often exempt from many union and curricular rules. The state also passed an ill-advised law precluding districts from taking test scores into account in teacher tenure decisions. New York seems to have done a particularly poor job of articulating and gathering statewide support for the reform agenda laid out in its application.
Like the other finalists that fell short, New York has a great deal to do before submitting its next application. That is due on June 1.
The New York Times
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