Race to the Top: Teachers left behind?

by Mark Silva

In "the race to the top,'' no child will be left behind, we're assured, but a lot of low-performing teachers - as measured by the poor performance of their students - may be

The government has set aside $4.5 billion, as part of the $787-billion economic stimulus, to spur public schools toward better achievement. As states compete for grants under the "Race to the Top'' program, they are being held to a standard that took root during the Bush administration, with its requirements that schools demonstrate yearly progress, and has blossomed in the Obama administration, which also is setting measurements for progress.

And for both the No Child Left Behind initiative that Bush won during his first year in office and the Race to the Top initiative that Obama's Department of Education is sponsoring in his first year, that means more student testing. It's a clear indicator of the common goals at work that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and school reformer, and former president's brother, has heartily endorsed the work that Obama's education department is doing.

It has also, as the Associated Press reports in an analysis of a blossoming partnership underway in Washington, spawned a new joke:

"The real secretary of education is Bill Gates.''

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has become the biggest player in the school reform movement, spending around $200 million a year on grants to elementary and secondary education, the AP's Lbby Quaid and Donna Blankenship report. But now the foundation is taking "unprecedented steps to influence education policy, spending millions to influence how the federal government distributes nearly $5 billion in grants to overhaul public schools. The federal dollars are unprecedented, too.''

Since Obama secured the money as part of the economic stimulus to spur schools that are failing their students, the Gates Foundation has offered grants of $250,000 apiece to help states apply for the money - " so long as they agree with the foundation's approach.'' The administration and foundation share common goals: Paying schoolteachers based on the performance of their students, and that means testing, encouraging charter schools that operate independently of local school boards; and establishing a common academic standards adopted by every state.

The big teachers' unions are at odds with some of these goals. They complain that standardized testing has run amok. The Obama administration has directly confronted a constituency that has been a longtime ally of the Democrats, those teachers' unions.

"Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it appears the administration has decided that charter schools are the only answer to what ails America's public schools," the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union, said in comments about the grant competition submitted to the Education Department. "We should not continue the unhealthy focus on standardized tests as the primary evidence of student success, the NEA said. The American Federation of Teachers submitted similar comments. Together, the unions count about 4.6 million members.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the former superintendent of schools from Chicago, welcomes the foundation's involvement. "The more all of us are in the game of reform, the more all of us are pushing for dramatic improvement, the better," Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Duncan's inner circle includes two former Gates employees, the AP report notes. His chief of staff is Margot Rogers, who was special assistant to Gates' education director. Assistant Deputy Secretary James Shelton was a program director for Gates' education division. The administration has waived ethics rules to allow Rogers and Shelton to deal more freely with the foundation, but Rogers said she talks infrequently with her former colleagues.

"It's no secret the U.S. education system is failing," Bill Gates says in this report. "We're doing all kinds of experiments that are different. The Race To The Top is going to do many different ones. There's no group-think."

When the foundation offered to help states apply for the federal funding, it initially offered the $250,000 to only 15 states. Officials in other states complained when they learned of the plan. And the foundation to expand its offer, now agreeing to help any state that meets eight criteria, including a commitment to the common standards effort and the ability to link student data to teachers. The foundation also is helping some districts that are eligible for a share of the money if they are working in partnership with nonprofits such as the Gates Foundation.

The Department of Education has announced public meetings across the country "to listen and learn from assessment experts and practitioners,'' the agency says. "The goals are two-fold: first to gather technical input to inform the development of a Race to the Top Assessment Competition; and second to enable states, who will be the competition applicants, and the public to participate in and learn from these events.

"The next generation of assessments will provide information that helps accelerate student learning and improve teachers' practice," Duncan says. "At these meetings, experts will give us their best ideas so we can support states' efforts to build the new assessments our country needs to ensure that our students are prepared for success in college and careers."

in the Race to the Top, the agency says:

Duncan has pledged to reserve up to $350 million to support consortia of states that are working to create new assessments tied to a common set of standards. The grants will be distributed next year through a competitive process. The assessment grants will come from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund and will be awarded under a separate program from the larger one designed to support states' comprehensive efforts to reform education.

Department officials will use the input gathered to design the application for the assessment competition; consortia of states, who are the applicants for the competition, will use the information to inform their proposed assessment designs. The department plans to publish the application early next year and will award grants by next fall.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act appropriated $4.35 billion for the Race to the Top Fund. The law requires the money to be distributed through four areas of reform:

Adopting college- and career-ready standards and assessments;

Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals;

Building data systems that measure student success and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve their practices; and

Turning around our lowest-performing schools.

"To succeed in comprehensive efforts to reform, states need to have plans to address each of these areas," Duncan says. "But high-quality standards and assessments are the foundation on which reforms are built. High-quality assessments are one of the most important ingredients of reform. We look forward to supporting states as they lead the way in this critical effort."