Backward March!

The National Urban League, which is having its centennial convention this week, backed off of its criticism of President Obama's education agenda.

Michele McNeil reports that a group of civil rights organizations who released a document criticizing Obama and the Department of Education’s reforms have done an about face. Despite originally calling for Race to the Top and other recent reforms to be dismantled, three of the groups now say the document was released too early and do not support it. Instead, they say that they agree for the most part with what the Administration has done. Hugh Price, former president of the Urban League, one of the original organizations signing the document, called what the White House has done the “most muscular federal education policy I’ve ever seen.” This comes after Duncan said that he thought the criticisms were unwarranted and that the DOE’s policies have been particularly effective for minorities.

President Obama today spoke at the National Urban League’s 100th Anniversary Convention, pressing for support of his actions, saying that the pushback is due to “a general resistance to change, a comfort with the status quo .” He called education the “economic issue of our time” and said that the reforms that have passed are all about accountability. In the end, it seems the critics have backed off, whether from fear or from a feeling that they were being to hasty. The Reverend Al Sharpton, who was supposed to be one of the speakers at a press conference for the document on Monday that was eventually cancelled, said he agrees with the president and is “prepared to fight for a lot of what he’s saying.”

The Obligatory Race to the Top Update

Well, there are lots of things going on in education these days, despite school being out for most of the country. The number one story of course, has been federal spending on education and specifically, Race to the Top. Well, specifics on the Race have been quiet for a bit, but the DOE just announced that there are 19 finalists for Round Two. Even though there are more states that are finalists than not (17 losing out), this seems to be about the number expected. Michele McNeil and Lesli Maxwell actually correctly predicted 17 of them. Only Arizona and Hawaii were surprises to them. Arizona made an incredible improvement, considering they were 40th the first time. I suppose requiring teachers not to have accents didn’t hurt their chances. The number of finalists is no surprise, though. In the first round, there were 15 finalists with only two winners. This time, Secretary Duncan said he expects 10-15 winners.

While the announcement is positive, Ed Sector’s Rob Manwaring questions the timing. Because the deadline for adopting the Common Core is August 2nd, states who are not finalists may have less reason to make moves to put them in place. He points out that of the eight states that applied for RttT and haven’t adopted the Common Core yet, only California is a finalist. That means Alabama, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington have all lost the incentive of Race to the Top. As the head of one of the test consortia, I’d expect Washington to go ahead and adopt the standards anyway, but what about the others? Perhaps, they’ll have second thoughts now. Money is a big draw. New York’s Board of Regents Chancellor, Merryl Tisch, said she’d love for New York to be able to do what they’ve proposed in their application, but doesn’t think it can happen without the money from the federal government. Of course, Duncan is playing the line that all the states should do what they propose, whether or not they get the money, but lots of states are having budget problems. New York’s budget is four months late. California has been cutting and cutting and still having incredible problems.

The Hechinger Report’s Justin Snider has a list of who he thinks will win. (Hint: not too many big states). If California, New York, and Florida were all to win, that would take up half of the money left. Don’t think that the DOE isn’t thinking politically in this one. They’ll make sure the states that win are not only the ones with the best shots of enacting their reforms, but the ones that will have the most political impact, too. A win for California or New York would be great for those states, but Florida is much more of a swing state. Will that affect the winners? Hopefully not, but you can’t rule it out.

Updates: Liz Willen from Hechinger has a great analysis of the changes Arizona made to go from 40th to a finalist.

Chaos and Teachers’ Voices

As I was reading Joanne Jacobs’s blog today, I came across this tidbit from Organized Chaos. Its author, Ann Bailey-Lipsett, was invited to a panel discussion with Education Sector. You can see the whole video here. Here’s what Jacobs quoted that interested me:

With first graders this process usually starts out in a few different ways.

The “structure-seekers” ask a lot of questions like “Where do I put my pencil?” “What is the right answer?” and “Do you want us to use blue paper or light blue paper?” while the “oh good, freedom! Let’s see what we can do/get away with” group gets busy making something happen. Not necessarily the right thing, mind you, but paper gets cut, glue bottles are out, excited chatter starts. Then another group, of course, the “run and hiders” manage to sneak into the classroom bathroom, or into the classroom library . . .  All the while, the “I have the right answer” group of children is walking around the room telling everyone else what to do with utmost confidence. And of course, because they are 6 and 7, they end up crying, stamping their feet, and swearing that they are not Susie/Jamie/Max’s friend because Susie/Jamie/Max wont listen to their idea.

Which is, actually, somewhat similar to what’s going on in the education-sphere as we all react to Race to the Top, and the (possible?) changes in Elementary and Secondary Education Act (The act formally known as NCLB).

Some states immediately got busy applying for RttT grants, while others refused to participate in the process. Some are not acknowledging that any change is occurring and will not until they’ve seen progress from other states, while some, who comfortably followed NCLB, are still waiting for specific instructions. Even in the room today, as I listened to the debate over how much students’ standardized assessments should play into teacher evaluation I couldn’t help feel that this how we are reacting to the discussion even on a personal level. Some of us are the bossy first graders announcing we know what the answer should and should not be. Some of us figure it will all play out in the end and we’re just along for the ride, while others look at this as a blank check to start some change.

Was this classroom full of 6-year-olds or policy-makers?

I really enjoyed Bailey-Lipsett’s insights, so I figured I’d look a little deeper and see what the rest of her blog post had to say. I thought a few of her points were really important. First of all, there is a worry that this method of being “tight on goals, loose on means” as Duncan has said can backfire. Bailey-Lipsett says she named her blog “Organized Chaos” specifically because of the craziness that results in these similar methods. Everyone has a different reaction and it takes a lot of energy to get to the end. However, after thinking about it, she realizes that with the right constraints, she ends up with better products in her classroom than when she has more structure. The idea behind the methods is clearly that with so many people trying many different things, there will be a big mixture of successes and failures from which to learn. Those lessons can then be applied in the future. If we only try one method, we can only know whether that one method worked. If we try many, there are many lessons to be learned.

Another point that of worry for her is the part of teachers in all of this. This has been a particularly contentious issue recently. The Administration has said many times that they want teacher input, but most teachers don’t feel like they are a part of the process. They don’t even feel much connection to the process, since it takes time for any of the new initiatives to take effect. Schools are still caught up in whether or not they will make AYP, pitting teachers against a system of punishment and blame. She said Brad Jupp pointed to the ability of unions to be the voices of teachers in all of this, but to her, in the current climate, that’s not feasible. Teachers join unions for protection from lawsuits, not as a place to voice their opinions. Perhaps that is the critical point that needs to be made. The unions have become powerful in many places because of their large membership, but there are so many teachers who are members that don’t even follow what their own unions are doing. If you thought national voter turnouts were terrible, you should see union voting. Rates of under 20% are not unusual.

One solution would be to create a grassroots movement to get teachers more involved in their unions. Young teachers with new ideas could actually participate and make a difference. I had a discussion with some others about this very thing. Within UTLA it literally only takes a handful of votes to get elected as a delegate in the House of Representatives. Get some people together and you can have your voice heard. While this grassroots approach has potential, I am a top-down kind of guy. I think to get things done quickly, people at the top need to make them happen. Perhaps instead of dealing with unions (which also leaves out all those who don’t belong to them), the administration should be looking to create ways for teachers to have input. Task forces and advisory committees could be formed and polls taken to see what teachers want. Why should it be so hard to find out what teachers think?

What do you think? How can teachers be heard better? Tonight, I’m off to a screening of “Waiting for Superman.” I’m sure you’ll hear all about it tomorrow.

Assessing the Assessments

Happy 4th! I’m about to be patriotic and read the SMARTER and PARCC applications for Race to the Test. Both are enormous, so I’m sure I won’t catch every detail of their applications. PARCC hasn’t even put their entire application online because it’s so big. Before I begin, I’ve got a few opening thoughts.

Assessment Applications and Fireworks: What could be better?

First of all, I think the state involvement is not what you’d expect. SMARTER has 31 states while PARCC has 26. Of course, the usual states aren’t participating: Texas, Alaska, and Wyoming. A few other states aren’t in on it either, though: Nebraska, Minnesota, and  Virginia (notice that Wisconsin is participating, even though Rep. Obey wanted to reduce the funding to it to RttT). It’s notable that none of those states applied for Race to the Top. Minnesota and Virginia claim that their standards are higher than the CORE standards on which the assessments will be based. While Minnesota may have some basis for their claim, all seven states ahead of them in the strength of their standards according to Education Next, Virginia ranks 40th among states in standards rigor. I’m having a hard time believe a C would bring down a D. Of course, the timeline could have something to do with this. States had to sign on to being a part of these consortia before the CORE standards were even released, so states didn’t have much to go on. By most accounts, the standards are higher than most if not all states currently, so that’s not a worry to those participating.

Aside from the states not participating, some states are participating in both of the consortia. Their staffs must be working overtime. Those in both are Colorado, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New Hampshire. It’s important to note that those states are considered “Advisory States” within SMARTER, rather than “Governing States.” Here’s a graphic to explain what that means. Most likely, they are only decision-makers in PARCC, but are working collaboratively with SMARTER on the R&D parts. This might actually prove handy to SMARTER. They get more states doing work for them (31 to 26), but have fewer states arguing over what to do (19 to 26).

Other observations? Going back to the state standards rigor, 9 out of the top 10 states participating are in SMARTER (Massachusetts isn’t), while only three are in PARCC (New Hampshire and New Jersey are in both). The states not participating are ranked 8 (MN), 23 (WY), 27(AK),  40(VA), 45(TX), and 49 (NE). It’s clear that it’s local-control politics (read Conservatives), rather than worry of low standards that is keeping these states out of participating. I suppose it’s just as well. That means that Virginia, Texas, and Nebraska can’t drag down the quality.

CORRECTION: After reading Bill Tucker’s post, I realize I overlooked the organization of PARCC. Those states that are advisory within SMARTER and are also in PARCC are also only advisory in PARCC. In addition, Iowa and South Dakota are advisory within SMARTER and not in PARCC, while California, Mississippi, and Arkansas are advisory within PARCC, but not in SMARTER. That means that PARCC only has 11 governing states, 8 less than SMARTER. Tucker also points out that the openness of the structure allows states to join or become governing states fairly easily, so it is likely that the consortia one stay in this configuration.

Twists and Turns

Well, despite all of the opposition (at least in the blogosphere) to Rep. Obey’s $10 billion teacher jobs amendment to a war bill, the House decided to pass it. The bill includes $800 million in cuts to White House initiatives, including $500 million from Race to the Top. If the Senate approves it, President Obama has promised to veto the bill. I can’t imagine it’ll get the 2/3 it would need to override a veto. Then again, I didn’t think it would pass in the first place. It’s interesting to note how education often does not completely work along party lines. The president is opposed to an appropriation that would be considered by many to be “too liberal.”

$800 Million, $10 Billion: It’s All the Same

If you pay attention to education headlines, you know that Congress has been talking about whether to authorize money to stave off teacher firings. The initial motion was to add $23 billion to a war appropriations bill. When that failed, Rep. David Obey D. WI decided to attempt a new tactic. Instead of $23 billion, he’s now asking for $10 billion with some of the money coming from previous education authorizations: $100 million from “innovation and improvement” (Alyson Klein thinks that means charters), $200 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund, and $500 million from Race to the Top. So let’s see, if we add that together, that makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 million or 8% of what he’s proposing. He obviously can’t think that that small amount is enough of a concession to get others to sponsor a $10 billion bill. The only logical answer is that he doesn’t approve of the programs that he’s taking money from.

Perhaps this might shed some light. Ah. So he’s one of those democrats. The new proposal seems to have less to do with giving teachers extra money than it does to taking away from the Administration’s priorities. Stafford Palmieri has a pretty decent assessment of the situation. She points out that his plan is specifically to take away from reforms and give more to the status quo. I’m not sure how expects this one to get passed if the last one didn’t. Obviously, the ED is none too pleased. My good friend Jeff Robinson had an interview with Arne Duncan yesterday about it. Jeff asks him why he thinks extra money is needed when the last appropriations still haven’t been spent. Duncan says that it’s because the money is meant for use in the long-run, but isn’t the point that it’s needed now when the economy is down, not in the future?

The Ed Department Spokesman, Peter Cunningham’s quote probably sums this up the best: If Congress is determined to find offsets, we will help them do that, but these are not the right ones. It’s hard to imagine much support for the measure, especially since round two of RttT is in the books and states are just waiting to cash in.

Are the Right States Being Rewarded in Race to the Top?

Paul Peterson and Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadón of Education Next recently wrote a report about the improvement (or lack thereof, depending) in state standards across the US. They compared students’ achievement levels on the state tests in comparison to how well they did on the National Assessment of Education Progress. For those unfamiliar, the NAEP was created by the Department of Education and is based upon average international standards of achievement among the  industrialized countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Overall, they found that while reading standards have risen some in recent years, math standards have actually dropped. However, just as important as growth are the levels at which standards are currently. The only state to have higher proficiency requirements than the NAEP in either reading or math was Massachusetts and that was only in math. The state with the lowest standards? Tennessee, one of the two winners of round one of RttT, was hands down the worst state in standards. How terrible?

Based on its own tests and standards, the state claimed in 2009 that over 90 percent of its 4th-grade students were proficient in math, whereas NAEP tests revealed that only 28 percent were performing at a proficient level. Results in 4th-grade reading and at the 8th-grade level are much the same. With such divergence, the concept of “standard” has lost all meaning. It’s as if a yardstick can be 36 inches long in most of the world, but 3 inches long in Tennessee.

Despite these low standards, it was at least holding fairly steady with only a 1% drop in its standards between 2003 and 2009, compared to Arizona with a 48.5% drop and South Carolina with an astounding 65.2% drop in its standards in those six years. In the report and in a podcast with Peterson and Chester Finn Jr., the success of Tennessee and Delaware in Race to the Top is questioned, considering that Tennessee was 51st out of all the states and DC and Delaware wasn’t much better at 36th. Peterson complains

In Tennessee, the gap [between proficiency on state tests versus the NAEP] is wider than any other state, so from that, we gave Tennessee an F. If you go by how well Tennessee has done in the past, how can it possibly be a candidate for one of the two top awards?

He and Finn joke about how federal funding is based upon promises and this is a clear example of that. If past performance were the main indicator, then Tennessee would be one of the first eliminated, rather than the biggest winner.

However, we need to think about the function of Race to the Top. What is its ultimate goal? I would assume  most would agree that RttT is aiming to be a catalyst for change. Duncan and Obama keep patting themselves on the back for all the reforms states have made in the past year without even receiving a penny in return. The money, therefore, is not for crossing the finish line. That’s the wrong metaphor. What’s the point of giving money to Massachusetts for their past performance if they’re going to do well regardless of the money? As mentioned in a previous post, Massachusetts lost out on RttT points because of not being quick enough to adopt the national standards – as the state with the top standards in the country, they would probably be lowering their standards if they adopted the national consensus ones. Why shouldn’t they get points for strong standards, then? Because the point is to get the low performers up. Peterson and Finn point out that both Delaware and Tennesee agreed to adopt the national standards. As both states currently have low standards, adopting the national ones can only move theirs up. I don’t have a problem with grading states based on moves they’re making – these are not for promises at some point in the future. The states have a proposal that has been accepted and is being funded, the same way non-profits or researchers submit a proposal for a grant and get money based on fulfilling the requirements. How else can you fund immediate innovation?

Is California Getting Some Help with RttT?

This article in the LA Times suggests that the state of California has recently been told by the federal DOE that it doesn’t need to get full participation from every district for Race to the Top as long as LAUSD (which has more students than half of the states in the US) takes part. There has been a lot of talk recently over whether it is better to have full buy-in from the districts, unions, etc. or to be bold. Duncan has had some frustration with this topic. There has been lots of speculation that because Delaware and Tennessee both had strong union support of their ideas, that was the way to go. However, Duncan has specifically said, “watered-down proposals with lots of consensus won’t win.” This points to an opening up of how the funding works. If it’s true that the strength of the proposal lies in how much reform there is, California has more incentive to target just a few districts that are willing to make greater strides than a large number of districts.

California probably figured it could win the race by shedding some weight.

Andy Smarick isn’t so sure that the article is accurate, though. His contentions are that: 1. Any application would be game if this were true, as long as they meet the data requirements. 2. It doesn’t make sense that the Department of Ed would have given them specific advice, since they are not apt to do that. And 3. It’s the judges that do the scoring, not the Ed Department anyway.

I’m not so sure there’s as big of a problem as Smarick thinks. First of all, if you take a look at the Race to the Top FAQs, question A-4 says that

The State’s applications for funding under Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (Stabilization) program must be approved by the Department prior to the State being awarded a Race to the Top grant.

It doesn’t say anything about not being allowed to make sure your application is legitimate; in fact, it implies the opposite. While the DOE last year said that LAUSD couldn’t apply on its own separate from the state, they never said the state had to have all of its districts in the race for its own application. In fact, if you take a look at section K of the FAQs, it talks about the process for LEAs (local education agencies, usually districts) to sign up (emphasis added):

Participating LEAs must agree to implement all or significant portions of the State’s plan and must enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or other binding agreement with the State that specifies the scope of work that the LEA will implement. The expectation is that participating LEAs will implement significant aspects of the State’s plan…If the State is awarded a Race to the Top grant, its participating LEAs (including those that submitted too late to be included in the application) will have up to 90 days to complete final scopes of work (referred to as Exhibit II in the model MOU). At the conclusion of that period, States will notify LEAs of their final section 14006(c) subgrant.

The implication seems to be that there is no expectation that all districts will comply. There even seems to be an expectation that they won’t and that the funding is based on those that do, rather than what the whole state is doing. So perhaps, the LA Times article wasn’t wrong, so much as misleading. What probably happened is that those in charge of the state’s application asked if they could have a more limited scope, because the population of California is bigger than the 18 smallest states combined. I don’t think that there were necessarily any lengthy negotiations of what they could or could not do. California may have submitted a proposal that was then approved. The author of the Times article also seems a bit unfamiliar with what they’re writing about, making it seem as if the deal with the Department of Ed means that the portions about charter laws and other factors can be glossed over. If anything, with fewer districts, expect the state to have its application more in line with what Duncan et al. want with more loosening of charter laws and tying performance to pay for teachers. The scenario really appears to be a win-win. The districts that participate have a higher chance of winning and the Administration doesn’t have to spend as much money if California wins, while still getting their participation.

Also, can someone please tell Andy Smarick that there are three words that start with ‘t” in Race to the Top, not two?

Update 5/6: It looks like my hunch was right. Edweek says that there was no deal between California and the Department of Ed. Rather than having a deal where California didn’t have to ask any other districts to participate (which the article never actually says, btw), the idea is that there is not a requirement that there be a large number of LEAs participating. There never was in the first place, but there were probably some conversations with Duncan encouraging the state to apply and reassuring them it would be OK. You can read the DOE’s damage control here.

Tuesdays with Arne: Is Race to the Top Arbitrary?

It seems like I have some learning to do in terms of keeping consistency. I have had a busy last week and finally have some time to commit to the blog. Fear not, though. I will make sure to mend my ways and adjust my scheduling. On to more knowledge!

There seem to be lots of people angry about education these days. Usually they are angry that others are running things a different way than they think things should be run. Charter schools or no charter schools? Teach For America or education schools? Pump lots of money in or let them suffer? OK, that one’s not what people actually think, but sometimes it seems that way.  One way to get lots of people angry is to throw around some money. Everyone always wants to say how money should be spent. Give incentives. Pay teachers more. Buy more technology. Any use of government funds is therefore at the top of the anger meter. Public funds are in part everyone’s money, so everyone seems to think they should have some say over it.

Last week, The Washington Post‘s education blog, “The Answer Sheet,” ran an article entitled “Race to Top Winners Chosen Arbitrarily.” It was based on a report from the Economic Policy Institute which calls the Race to the Top “a muddled path to the finish line.” I have a hard time reading things that seem so categorical. As soon as a report comes out calling something fundamentally right or wrong, I become skeptical. However, the report has some strong analysis, despite its extreme conclusions. It has some important criticisms that should be corrected in future rounds of Race to the Top if it is to continue.

For those who don’t know, Race to the Top uses a 500-point rating system to determine the winners of hundreds of millions of dollars. The table at the bottom, which is shown in the report and comes from http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-27426.pdf, shows what factors go into the process. As you can see, there are thirty different factors that the were used to determine grades. And that leads me to the first criticism – Peterson and Rothstein (neither of whom I’d like to point out are education policy analysts) say that the process is “needlessly complex.” The point out that there are lots of factors with varying weights. I’m not sure that this is much of a problem, since education is complex in itself. Better to have a large number of specific criteria than a few vague ones.

However, the importance of this claim becomes more apparent in conjunction with the fact that these criteria are not scientifically chosen. I’m not sure how they came to that conclusion. They state that the factors themselves seem to be arbitrary. Clearly the people running this are not just picking issues out of a hat. The report brings up a good point that even though the factors are somewhat based on policy preferences, even that does not quite hold water. Duncan’s “Blueprint,” which  gives proposals for allocations in the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) includes ideas for competitions in areas that are given no points in RttT. The report makes it seem as if this means that there is some incongruity – either Duncan thinks these are important issues or he doesn’t. But if he’s asking for money separately, does that necessarily mean there needs to be money directed at these areas twice?

In addition to the claim that the factors are arbitrary, the report says the weights themselves are arbitrary:

Is there scientific support for the “State Success Factors” being 90.6% as important as the “Great Teachers and Leaders”

factor? Should the “Great Teachers” maximum points be 140, or maybe 163, instead of 138?

Apparently they subscribe to the logical fallacy that I warned my my 10th graders against: a lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. In other words, just because these researchers don’t know reasons for there being varying weights does not mean there aren’t any reasons. It seems absurd to claim that there was no scientific basis for choosing these factors and these weights. They even point out that there was a time period for open comments from the public, some of which were accepted and others rejected (or as they claim “ignored”). The problem is that the reasoning was not given, not that there wasn’t reasoning.

The biggest problem with RttT’s system in my eyes that the report points out are the enormous scales used and the inconsistency in grading as a result. In my Master’s in Education program, we were warned against having grading scales that are too complex. There are usually only about three to five gradations that a normal person is able to distinguish between. Even getting up to seven starts to get hazy. What is the difference between scoring 42 or 43 points out of 50? That, I will agree, leads to arbitrariness. If the creators of the system want something to be worth 50 points, then differences in weighting need to occur, rather than a broad scale. Perhaps it should be out of five possible points and then multiplied by 10.  On top of the scale, it is clear that the factors themselves are not specific enough. The report points out that in one instance, Florida received scores of 25, 35, 38, 40, and 40 points from the five judges on the same criteria. The scores are then averaged. I don’t know about you but to me, for one person to think  that Florida should get 25 while two others think 40 means that someone doesn’t know what they’re doing. There needs to be consistency. The report suggests an olympic-style dropping of lowest and highest scores to account for outliers. This does not satisfy me. If there are extreme outliers, that points to a problem in the criterion itself. The graders need to have consensus and not just agree to disagree.

With all of these problems, and I will agree that there are a fair number, Peterson and Rothstein recommend that the government move toward a pass/fail system, rather than such a complex one that is sure to have many inconsistencies. However, this seems to be a step backwards. The whole point of Race to the Top is that there is a top that states are aiming for, not a bottom. To have a bare minimum that states need to achieve sets states’ aims at that minimum, rather than creating an education market of sorts in which the best state wins. With so much money riding, there certainly need to be improvements, but altering concept is not necessary in light of these particular problems.

	Metric Weighting for Race to the Top Competition
		Possible points			Weight
A. State success Factors		125			25%
	(A)(1) Articulating State’s education reform agenda and LEA’s participation in it		65		13
	(i) Articulating comprehensive, coherent reform agenda			5	1
	(ii) Securing LEA commitment			45	9
	(iii) Translating LEA participation into statewide impact			15	3
	(A)(2) Building strong statewide capacity to implement, scale up, and sustain proposed plans		30		6
	(i) Ensuring the capacity to implement			20	4
	(ii) Using broad stakeholder support			10	2
	(A)(3) Demonstrating significant progress in raising achievement and closing gaps		30		6
	(i) Making progress in each reform area			5	1
	(ii) Improving student outcomes			25	5
B. Standards and Assessments		70			14
	(B)(1) Developing and adopting common standards		40		8
	(i) Participating in consortium developing high-quality standards			20	4
	(ii) Adopting standards			20	4
	(B)(2) Developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments		10		2
	(B)(3) Supporting the transition to enhanced standards and high-quality assessments		20		4
C. Data systems to support Instruction		47			9
	(C)(1) Fully implementing a statewide longitudinal data system		24		5
	(C)(2) Accessing and using state data		5		1
	(C)(3) Using data to improve instruction		18		4
D. Great Teachers and Leaders		138			28
	(D)(1) Providing high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals		21		4
	(D)(2) Improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance		58		12
	(i) Measuring student growth			5	1
	(ii) Developing evaluation systems			15	3
	(iii) Conducting annual evaluations			10	2
	(iv) Using evaluations to inform key decisions			28	6
	(D)(3) Ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals		25		5
	(i) Ensuring equitable distribution in high-poverty or high-minority schools			15	3
	(ii) Ensuring equitable distribution in hard-to-staff subjects and specialty areas			10	2
	(D)(4) Improving the effectiveness of teacher and principal preparation programs		14		3
	(D)(5) Providing effective support to teachers and principals		20		4
E. Turning around the Lowest-achieving schools		50			10
	(E)(1) Intervening in the lowest-achieving schools and LEAs		10		2
	(E)(2) Turning around the lowest-achieving schools		40		8
	(i) Identifying the persistently lowest-achieving schools			5	1
	(ii) Turning around the persistently lowest-achieving schools			35	7
F. General		55			11
	(F)(1) Making education funding a priority		10		2
	(F)(2) Ensuring successful conditions for high-performing charter schools and other innovative schools		40		8
	(F)(3) Demonstrating other significant reform conditions		5		1
Competitive Preference Priority 2: Emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)		15			3
Total			500		100%

Tuesdays with Arne

For those of you who are NPR buffs, you may have heard Neil Conan’s interview of Arne Duncan yesterday on Talk of the Nation. If you haven’t, it’s a good listen (or read, if you prefer). I especially appreciate Conan’s pressing of inconsistencies. In particular, he starts out right away asking whether the “education bailout” would be tied to reform at all. Duncan tries to skirt around this a few times, but finally relents and says “no.” He claims that we need to give this money to save jobs, since so many districts are cutting teachers due to financial troubles, but at the same time keep pressing a reform agenda. Basically, we want to keep education alive, but still have that carrot to make it get better. This sounds great until you look at the numbers a la Andy Smarick. Raise your hand if you know how much the Race to the Top money is worth. Right, $4.35 billion dollars. It sounds like a lot of money, until you compare the other money coming from Congress to the states for education. The first big wallet opening was in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act  – a whopping $75 billion. On top of that, Duncan is pressing for this second bailout of an additional $23 billion. That’s $98 billion that is no-strings-attached. States and districts don’t have to change their policies a bit to load that into their pockets. Now how big does $4.35 billion sound? States may be offered a carrot, but it’s only after receiving a 5-course dinner.

My other big bone to pick with Duncan is his view on funding. He says that not only does most of the money for education come from the local level, it should. I can not even begin to think of how the person running our federal education plan can possibly really believe that. After he just gets through talking about how students right outside of Chicago have double the funding per student as those he presided over as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, he says that funding should come from the local level. Something does not compute here. Is he saying that it’s OK for those kids from rich families to have better funding for their schools? This seems preposterous to me. It’s one thing to say that educational decisions should come from the local level. I don’t personally agree with that, but I can understand where people are coming from when they say that. But to say that the bulk of funding should come from the local level? That makes absolutely no sense to me. I worked in a school in Arizona for two years that got less funding than another school in the exact same district, simply because money generated from income taxes was higher at that other school. The rich stay rich and the poor kids have to make due. Duncan talks about creating incentives for teachers to go into urban and poverty-stricken schools. How about at least allowing for some fair competition? If a failing school doesn’t have the resources to compete with a great one, why would a teacher want to go there? I hear lots of hope for change, but I’d like to see them put their money where their mouths are – and more than just 4% of the money.