California loses on Race to the Top

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today issued the following statement after learning California was not selected as a winner for Phase 2 funding of the federal Race to the Top (RTT) competition.

"I am deeply disappointed that our application was not chosen as a winner in the Race to the Top competition. However, the loss of the funding may slow, but not defeat, our efforts to improve student achievement in California," O'Connell said. "We remain fully committed to continue seeking the strategies and resources demanded to accelerate our efforts to close the achievement gap among different groups of students by creating fundamental and far-reaching reforms.

"Our application focused on the necessary elements to help us meet the needs of our lowest-performing students and help us raise the ceiling for students who are already performing at high levels. These elements included rigorous, internationally benchmarked standards, effective use of data, more emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and the most important ingredient of all—effective and accountable teachers and principals. These are the fundamentals that will improve achievement in the short run and for the long term so that we can create a statewide system of excellence in our public

The participating LEAs represent more than 1.7 million California students, a student population larger than the total kindergarten through twelfth grade enrollment of all but six other U.S. states. These LEAs also serve some of the neediest students in the state, as 68 percent of the students in participating districts live in poverty.

California's RTTT Phase 2 application was rooted in four key areas of reform that call for:

•                Refining California's rigorous state standards by adopting internationally benchmarked common core standards and aligned assessments that better prepare students for success in college and the workplace;

•                Recruiting, developing, and retaining effective teachers and principals and ensuring that they are helping students that need them the most;

•                Expanding our education data system to better measure student success in college and the workforce; and

•                Dramatically improving the state's persistently lowest-performing schools.

California's Phase 2 RTTT application also emphasizes the critical goal of advancing the state's students' understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). With funding from the federal government, the state plans to launch new partnerships with institutions of higher education, and strengthen and expand the delivery of STEM in California's high schools. The plan also includes an emphasis on building a strong STEM foundation in the kindergarten through eighth grade system, an expansion of support systems, and infrastructure for the future of STEM.

Information on California's RTTT Phase 2 application may be found at Race to the Top (Outside Source).

Changing NCLB and Race to the Top

July 28, 2010 MEET WITH YOUR U.S. REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATORS IN AUGUST  TO OVERHAUL "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND"  For the past several months, Congressional committees have been quietly working to reauthorize federal requirements that mandate massive over-testing and the misuse of tests for major decisions about schools. As you know, the so-called "No Child Left Behind" law, the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) resulted in dumbed-down curriculum with schools becoming test prep programs but little progress in improving student learning or narrowing achievement gaps. Your elected Senators and Representative must hear your voice NOW if we are to stop plans to make federal law worse and win positive benefits for our nation's children and their schools. Congress will be in recess during most of August and the first half of September. Many members will be in their districts running for re-election and meeting with constituents.  This is a critical time for supporters of assessment reform to visit with their Representatives and Senators. The easiest way to do this is go to the website of your Representative or Senator, find the location(s) of their local offices, and call to set up an appointment. Push hard to meet with the elected official, not just staff. - To find the name of your Rep., go to: http://www.votesmart.org.  Enter your ZIP + 4 Code to get the most accurate information. It is best to go as a small group, with each person prepared to focus on one or two points. Your delegation could include local educators, parents, civil rights leaders and community activists. Bring selected materials to hand out. FairTest recommends that you focus on the recommendations of the Forum on Educational Accountability. Prepare ahead of time to discuss the following points: 1. Provide for states to develop a three part assessment and evaluation systemcomprised of local and classroom-based assessments; limited large-scale, state-wide testing (e.g., once each elementary, middle, secondary); and a statewide school quality review. 2. Reject proposed requirements to evaluate teachers based on their student's standardized test scores. 3. Support approaches to improving schools that are backed by research and evidence; reject "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) and Duncan's "turnaround" proposals. -see also FEA's report Redefining Accountability. 4. Fully fund ESEA Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Part B (IDEA); reject the use of Duncans' proposed competitive grants. -see also FEA's Empowering Schools and Improving Learning These recommendations and more have been made by the Forum on Educational Accountability and/or FairTest. Also, please let FairTest know when you have set up a meeting and what resulted from it, by emailing monty@fairtest.org. Monty Neill                                              Bob Schaeffer Interim Executive Director                          Public Education Director

Criticism of Race to the Top

Dear friends,

In the past week there has been significant developments in the growth of anti-Race to the Top sentiment around the country.  An impressive coalition of national civil rights groups issued a statement critical of the Obama/Duncan administration's educational policies: Framework for Providing All Students an Opportunity to Learn through Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It's worth the read. 

Similarly, a coalition of 24 community groups organized by Communities for Excellent Public Schools issued a stinging critique of the federal government's "turnaround" strategies. "Our Communities Left Behind: An Analysis of the Administration's School Turnaround Policies" is a comprehensive critique that shows why those policies won't work and offers concrete suggestions as to what will turn around struggling schools. For a summary see an article in the Washington Post. 

The lead segment on Democracy Now on July 30 was on the Race to the Top and included interviews with Diane Ravitch and Leonie Haimson from Class Size Matters and they respond to President Obama's recent speak at the National Urban League where he defended the Race to the Top program. It's worth the listen:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/30/obama_defends_sweeping_education_reforms_in

These critiques confirm what those of us who are in the classroom have seen for the past several years. Many federal education policies are actually hurting students, making it more difficult for teachers to provide quality education to those who need it most. It's time for a change.

Sincerely,

Bob Peterson, Rethinking Schools

Race to the top?

AFT Has Mixed Reaction to Latest Race to the Top Finalists

AFT president Randi Weingarten on July 27 congratulated the 19 finalists for
phase 2 of Race to the Top, but raised concerns about some aspects of the
competitive federal grants program. The best of those finalists, Weingarten
says, "have made a concerted effort to bring together parents, educators and
community leaders to develop a thoughtful, student-focused approach to improving
public education." (Final grant winners will be announced in September.)

"AFT members in states like Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Rhode Island fought for and won a seat at the table, and their
management counterparts engaged with them in a respectful, professional way,"
Weingarten says. "Fully recognizing that Race to the Top is far from perfect,
our members nevertheless worked tirelessly to ensure that stakeholders in these
states focused on students' interests and offered solutions that make sense in
their classrooms.

"The centerpiece of Race to the Top is meaningful teacher evaluations developed
with teacher input and focused on student learning. The Department of
Education's rhetoric, and its scoring rubric, purport to reward states that work
with teachers to develop this kind of evaluation system. Logically, then,
Washington, D.C.'s application, which includes an evaluation system developed
and implemented solely by the chancellor, without regard to considerable
criticism this year from frontline educators, should have ranked among the
lowest. By naming D.C. a finalist, the Education Department is sending a message
that is completely opposite to its earlier calls for states to engage all
community members, including teachers, in the effort to improve schools. No one
wants bad teachers, but no one should want bad teacher evaluation systems
either.

"While we encouraged our local and state affiliates to be involved in every
aspect of Race to the Top, we have always been troubled that this competition,
by its very construct, leaves out millions of students across the country.
Rather than picking winners and losers, our education policies should represent
a comprehensive approach focused on preparing every student to succeed in
college, work and life. Last month in Seattle, delegates to the AFT's convention
embraced such an approach: namely, to ensure that every neighborhood school is
an excellent school; to build on what works and replicate it for all kids; to
create a school environment in which students have what they need to succeed,
including a well-rounded curriculum; and to provide teachers the necessary
support so they can constantly improve.


"With all the attention that Race to the Top has received, some have lost sight
of the fact that students' success is threatened by Washington's failure to help
states and districts that are still feeling the effects of the recession. Even
after today's announcement, Race to the Top has delivered funds to just two
states, Delaware and Tennessee. Meanwhile, schools across the nation face
hundreds of thousands of educator layoffs, ballooning class sizes, cuts to
after-school programs, four-day weeks, and the elimination of advanced
placement, music, art and P.E. classes. The U.S. House of Representatives showed
great leadership in passing a bill to avert these cuts, but the Senate's failure
to act on the educator jobs bill leaves our students and schools in a precarious
position. This failure dwarfs whatever changes Race to the Top might effect
because, as our members know, education reform faces impossible odds when
schools face massive budget cuts." [AFT press release]

July 27, 2010

Civil Rights Groups criticize Race to the Top

A coalition of civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, issued a scathing report about RTTT, calling on President Obama and Arne Duncan to dismantle core components of the law...

"The Race to the Top Fund and similar strategies for awarding federal
education funding will ultimately leave states competing with states,
parents competing with parents, and students competing with other
students..... By emphasizing competitive incentives in this economic
climate, the majority of low-income and minority students will be left
behind and, as a result, the United States will be left behind as a
global leader."
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2010/07/civil_rights_groups_call_for_n.html?cmp=clp-edweek

Obama, Duncan, and Race to the Top

A chilling article. Pro Duncan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23Race-t.html?pagewanted=all

Did Congress Authorize Race to the Top?

Published in Print: April 28, 2010. Education Week.

Commentary

By Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 set aside roughly $5 billion to be used by the U.S. secretary of education to make incentive grants to states that “have made significant progress” in meeting four objectives: achieving equity in teacher distribution, improving collection and use of data, enhancing standards and assessment, and supporting struggling schools.

There is nothing in the text of the ARRA, or in the portions of the two other statutes to which it points (the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the America Competes Act), that authorizes, requires, or even suggests that states competing for funds would need to adopt common state standards, create more charter schools, evaluate teachers and principals based on gains in student achievement, emphasize the preparation of students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or restructure the lowest 5 percent of their schools.

Yet the grant program the administration designed to implement the provisions of the ARRA, the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top initiative, included each of these policy priorities, and states had no chance of winning unless their applications were built around them.

The Race to the Top initiative substitutes the phrase “turning around our lowest-achieving schools” for the language of “supporting struggling schools” in the ARRA, defines low-performing schools entirely differently from how the ESEA does, and requires that applicants impose one of four newly defined intervention models on those schools, rather than one of the five options in the ESEA.

Beyond these specifics, the purpose of the Race to the Top as described by the Education Department—innovation and reform—has no basis in the ARRA. These terms do not appear in the “state incentive grants” section of the law. Rather, the reasonable reading of the language of the ARRA is that states would compete based on their prior success in raising student achievement, assuring an equitable distribution of teachers, building longitudinal databases, improving standards and assessments, and supporting struggling schools, along with the quality of their plans for continuing to make progress.

"It is a mistake in principle—and a danger in reality—to allow any U.S. secretary of education this much policy discretion when doling out large sums of money."

Since the winners under the conditions of competition suggested in the ARRA would be the states that had already done the best job, they would be the states least likely to need dramatic reforms. The expressed intent of the ARRA, to reward states that had made the most progress, was transformed in the Race to the Top to rewarding states that could best articulate and achieve statewide buy-in for a reform agenda that suited the administration.

The two winners from the first round of competition were Delaware and Tennessee. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan singled out the courage of the reforms proposed by these two states, as well as statewide buy-in, as the factors that made them stand out in the competition. He did not mention the significant progress they had already made in meeting the objectives listed in the ARRA. He could have done that for Delaware, which has a history of success, but it would have been embarrassing to try to lift Tennessee onto that pedestal.

In taking considerable license with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to fund its own priorities, the administration has furthered its education agenda as cash-strapped states chase Race to the Top grants. Provisions of the education initiative that would have been difficult to obtain in federal legislation and weren’t mentioned in the ARRA, such as the lifting of caps on charter schools, have now been put in place legislatively in several states in order for them to be competitive for Race to the Top grants.

The priorities imposed by the secretary in Race to the Top are in favor in education reform circles. Perhaps that is why there has been so little criticism of the process. Even states that would have been certain winners if the competition had been based on past accomplishment, such as Massachusetts and Florida, have not complained publicly. Such is the power of the $3.4 billion still on the table for the next round of competition.

I applaud many of the Obama administration’s priorities for education, and cannot but admire the boldness of its strategy for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the quality of its tactical implementation. But it is a mistake in principle—and a danger in reality—to allow any U.S. secretary of education this much policy discretion when doling out large sums of money. If you like Arne Duncan, as I do, then think of the person you would least like to be secretary of education ensconced in that Cabinet post with $5 billion to play with.

Although my argument has been focused on the divergence between the language of the ARRA and the Race to the Top, my point is not narrowly legalistic. Based on the ARRA itself, I don’t think Congress intended to give Secretary Duncan the carte blanche he took. But even if it did, once was enough. This issue is real, because the administration has proposed that the Race to the Top be an annual competition.

It used to be that Bill Gates was the most powerful education philanthropist in America. Thanks to the Race to the Top, that mantle has passed to Arne Duncan. Do we want to make that the permanent status of U.S. secretaries of education?

The legislative process is messy, but we are better served in the long term by allowing our elected representatives to decide on the education policies we are to pursue as a nation, rather than having them dictated to us by the executive branch under the guise of a grant program to reward reform and innovation.

Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst is a senior fellow and the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, and a member of the Hoover Institution's Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. He was the founding director of the Institute of Education Sciences within the U.S. Department of Education, and served from 2002 to 2008.

Vol. 29, Issue 30, Page 24

California hopes dim for RTTT

In the article State hopes dim for Race to the Top funds by Laurel Rosenhall in the Sacramento Bee today (p.1) , she claims that union opposition and poor student tracking system plagued the California application for RTTT.

While this is accurate, it avoids the important questions.  Why was there union opposition?  The writer notes that she contacted the relevant unions but did not receive a call back.

However, the opposition of the unions CTA and CFT was well documented in the hearings on the Romero legislation and in their own publications.  The writer had a professional obligation to publish the arguments.

The unions opposed RTTT because it blamed teachers for problems in the society of poverty and the economic crisis.   They opposed the RTTT legislation because it promoted the use of unreliable and invalid tests  and then would use these test scores to evaluate teachers.  And, they opposed RTTT process because the potential funds were not going into the classrooms where funds are desperately needed, but were to go to consultants to write more reports about what should be done.  RTTT would fund the consultant class, not classrooms.  Why should teachers participate in that?

Race to the Top Winners ?

Race to the Top awards go to Delaware, Tennessee
By Nick Anderson and Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 29, 2010; 4:27 PM

Delaware and Tennessee won the first shares of President Obama's $4 billion fund for education innovation and reform while the District of Columbia came in last among 16 finalists, federal officials announced Monday.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan picked the winners after a team of judges in the Race to the Topcompetition gave tiny Delaware the highest ranking, with Tennessee close behind. Delaware won as much as $107 million and Tennessee could be awarded $502 million.
The grants are the most significant move yet by the Obama administration to transform education in the United States, an issue that has moved nearer to the top of his domestic agenda with the passage of health-care reform.
Duncan acknowledged that the tiny winner's circle was designed as an incentive for other states to continue revamping their education policies. It also deflects suggestions that the administration would seek to spread the money around as quickly and widely as possible to help Obama win favor in key political states.
---- from the L.a. Times

California finished 27th among 41 applicants, a middling performance even among the group that failed to become finalists. California's application lost points in part because only 56% of school districts agreed to participate and because teacher union involvement was lower still.

Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois, among the other finalist states, came up short. Although Delaware is the home state of Vice President Biden, the administration has little at stake there politically.
Duncan praised Delaware and Tennessee as committed to reaching all of their school districts with programs designed to turn around struggling schools and install meaningful teacher evaluation systems tied to student achievement.
"They have demonstrated the courage, capacity and commitment to turn their ideas into practices," Duncan said in a conference call with reporters.
Georgia placed third in the contest, followed by Florida. More than $3 billion remains in the fund, and they could win money in the next round later this year. Duncan said he expects a significantly larger number of winning states in the second round, possibly 10 to 15.
Virginia, one of 41 first-round applicants, had failed to make the final 16. Maryland skipped the first round and is planning to compete in the second round
While Duncan said no one factor was decisive for Tennessee and Delaware, it was apparent that buy-in from teachers' unions and other key stakeholders was an important factor. Florida and Louisiana, both favored to win, did not have broad union support.
The same was true for the District, where Washington Teachers' Union president George Parker refused to sign the application because of his opposition to a new teacher evaluation system introduced last fall by Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee.
The competition generated its own version of "March Madness" among competing states. Lured by the prospect of tens, and even hundreds, of millions of dollars at a time of acute fiscal stress, some statehouses have moved to ease limits on autonomous public charter schools, revamp teacher pay and evaluation, expand the collection of student achievement data and take other steps in line with Obama's agenda.
"It absolutely has lit a fire," Duncan said of the state-level push toward reform.
But some analysts call the impact limited.
"The truth is, a handful of states made important changes to their laws," said Andy Smarick of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based think tank dedicated to improving K-12 schools. "A lot of states did nothing at all, and a good number did minor things to their laws."
Some states favor a tuneup, rather than a shake-up, for schools, a strategy that appears to weigh against them in the competition. Virginia proposed a modest expansion of charter schools and experiments with performance pay but was told to reapply. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has proposedsomewhat tighter rules for teachers to gain tenure, but it remains unclear how much that would help the state's chances.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R ) refused to apply, calling Race to the Top an unwarranted federal intrusion.
In the District, the public school system and public charter schools banded together to build on initiatives launched by Rhee. D.C.'s application said a grant award would be "a political win," signaling endorsement of the work Rhee has done in rolling out a rigorous new teacher evaluation system that will allow it to more easily remove ineffective teachers from the classroom.
District officials also emphasized the city's compact size and the way that mayoral control of the school system would maximize the chances of federal dollars having an immediate and dramatic impact. Officials also pointed to Washington's fast-growing charter school sector, which is consistent with the emphasis Obama has placed on charters to spur competition.
But tensions between Rhee and the teachers' union over a new contract may have hurt the District's chances. Negotiations have dragged on for more than two years, although both sides say they are close to a tentative agreement.
Parker declined to sign the District's application, citing his opposition to the new IMPACT teacher evaluation system. Reading and math teachers in grades 4 through 8 will have half their evaluations weighted toward annual growth in standardized test scores. Teachers with weak overall evaluations face dismissal.

Race to the Top and the Sacramento Bee

Race to the Top

There was a well-written piece by Laurel Rosenhall of the Sacramento Bee of Jan.11, on the role of the CTA and Ed Voice in passing the current California Race to the Top bill.  Here: http://www.sacbee.com/education/story/2452085.html

                The conflict is far more than CTA vs. EdVoice and their  corporate sponsors.  There are a number of reasons to be opposed to the Race to the Top  proposals including dissent from people who know testing and its limits well. Nichols and Berliner (2007) and Bracey's, Education Hell: Rhetoric vs. Reality, among others deal with these issues. There are significant substantive reasons to oppose RTTT.

To accuse resistance as a CTA conflict is to miss state the issues. All you have to do is read the comments on the  U.S. Department of Education  RTTT web pages to see the many controversies.  

Mike Rose in  Why School, expresses some  core ideas related to NCLB and RTTT.

“For some time now, our national discussion of education has been dominated by a language of test scores and economic competitiveness.   To be sure, a major goal of American education is to prepare the young to make a living. But parents send their children to school for many other reasons as well: intellectual, social, civic, ethical and aesthetic.  Historically, these justifications for schooling have held more importance.  Not today.

…

It matters a great deal how we collectively talk about education, for that discussion both reflects and, in turn, affects policy decisions about what gets taught and tested, about funding, about what we expect schooling will contribute to our lives. It matters as well, how we think about intelligence, how narrowly or broadly we define it.  Our beliefs about intelligence affect everything from the way we organize school and work to how we treat each other.  And, it surely matters how we think about opportunity. “

Mike Rose.  Why School.  Reclaiming Education for All of Us. (2009)

The Race to the Top debate in the California legislature has great import since most observers expect the guidelines and projects of RTTT to become the Obama Administration’s proposals for the re- authorization of No Child Left Behind or ESEA.   Based upon our experiences over the last eight years, Teachers have many good reasons to oppose the California  bill that accepts a whole series of corporate myths. See, http://www.choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com

            In the California conflict an interesting position was created about the role of parent empowerment.  While we are all in favor of more parent participation, I am trying to understand how parent participation became a campaign strategy in support of Race to the Top.   Senator Gloria Romero, Chair of the Senate Education Committee and the leading candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, wrote provisions in SBX 5.1 ( the RTTT bill) that expanded parent rights beyond anything required by Race to the Top. 

            There was a significant mobilization of parents in the Los Angeles School District in November insisting upon more access to charter schools and lifting the limit on charters.  I would like to know more about this effort.  From outside, it appears that the parents were frustrated with lack of improvement in Los Angeles Unified- there has been a 20 year struggle to break up the bureaucratic district.

            It seems that the educational advocates of Ed Voice- who claim to be a civil rights effort, somehow converted or directed this parent effort into an anti union effort that became identified in the Sacramento legislature as anti CTA.  They were able to use RTTT to pass legislation that could not have otherwise been passed in the legislature.  One controversial issue passed was that parents by petition could insist upon closing down a consistently poorly performing school.

            This parent mobilization appears similar to the famous parent mobilization in  Ninth  Street Elementary in Los Angeles,  California used by Ron Unz to pass Prop. 227.  A legitimate parent concern was framed in a manner to gain political power.  In Prop. 227, the conflict was about language policy and bilingualism; in Race to the Top the conflict appears to be parent mobilization for improved schools transferred into an anti union campaign. 

            I am not certain about this.  What is the advantage of ED Voice to frame the battle over RTTT in this manner?  One advantage I can see is that by shaping the conflict and the message as anti union they gained a firm right wing populist base and an echo chamber on talk radio.   In a similar manner, in the Prop. 227 case, rather than seeking a resolution to the problems of a program in a school, the Unz campaign gained a right wing anti immigrant populist base and an echo chamber on talk radio.   So, they gained a hard right base to attack the union.  What is the purpose of this?  The purpose of strengthening the Republican Right is well documented on the English for the Children web site. http://www.onenation.org/news.html

            I would like to understand the purpose of the parent mobilizations in the Los Angeles case- a mobilization that influenced Senator Romero and allowed her to successfully author legislation for dramatic reform of failing schools.  I suspect that the parents wanted better education conditions for their kids.  I doubt if they started out with a union bashing goal.

            The economic crisis and the decline of support for public schools have  produced more severe conditions in many schools, particularly those that are failing.  Arne Duncan, Al Sharpton,  Newt Gingrich,  and others are promoting Race to the Top as a solution to the current conditions.  The RTTT proposals do not respond to the real issues of school reform, they serve as a substitute.  Well, if they are a substitute, what is the goal of offering them as a substitute rather than dealing with the real issues, which include poverty? 

            Where do these policy proposals come from?   The Race to the Top proposals come from legislators and lobbyists whose own self interest guide their recommendations, not the interests of students in schools.

 Lets look at a parallel field.  The U.S.  is  presently engaged in a national debate on health care.  Imagine that as a part of the debate the politicians and the lobbyists were allowed to decide on the procedures for health care and the medicines to be used to treat the ill.  It does not happen.  Doctors and nurses, and health administrators make the major decisions- and unfortunately the insurance companies.

Why then in schools do we allow politicians, lobbyists, and other “experts” who are not teachers and have not worked in classrooms for over ten years, and who have not taught children, to make the basic decisions about schooling.

STEM funding in Race to the Top

Why STEM Fever?
Sent to Education Week, Jan 7, 2009

Why the push for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education) ("Obama Unveils Projects to Bolster STEM Teaching, January 7)?

One rationale is the claim that the US needs to improve STEM education to compete with other countries.  In reality, the US is already very competitive, ranking second in the world (out of 133 countries) in "global competitiveness," outranked only by tiny Switzerland (World Competitiveness Report, World Economic Forum), and we have been number one for many years.  Also the US ranks 5th out of 133 in "availability of scientists & engineers," second in "quality of scientific research institutions" and first in "university-industry research collaboration."


A second rationale is the claim that there is a shortage of experts in science and technology. But a number of recent studies conclude that there is a surplus.  According to Gerald Bracey, "… the impending shortage of scientists and engineers is one of the longest running hoaxes in the country."

Some STEM education supporters acknowledge our leadership in science and technology, but note that American children do not do well on international tests in math and science. But studies have shown that American children in low-poverty schools outscore nearly all other countries on these tests.

U.S. children only fall below the international average when 75 percent or more of the students in a school live in poverty. Studies confirm that hunger, poor diet, a toxic environment, and a lack of reading material seriously affect academic performance. We have so many children who live in poverty that it profoundly affects the average test score: The US has the highest level of childhood poverty of all industrialized countries (25%, compared to Denmark's, 2%).  The problem is poverty, not a lack of high-powered science and math instruction.

Have STEM education supporters considered these facts?

Stephen Krashen

Some sources:
Berliner, D. 2009. Poverty and Potential:  Out-of-School Factors and School Success.  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential
Bracey, G. 2009. Education Hell: Rhetoric Vs. Reality. Alexandra, VA: Educational Research Service.
Martin, M. 2004.  A strange ignorance: The role of lead poisoning in “failing schools.” http://www.azsba.org/lead.htm.
Teitelbaum, M. 2007. Testimony before the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation. Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, November 6, 2007
Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13.
Toppo, G. and Vergano, D. 2009.  Scientist shortage? Maybe not. USA Today, August 9, 2009

Schragg on Race to the Top

Arne Duncan’s Two-by-Four: Is It Big Enough?

By Peter Schrag 
California Progress Report Columnist

There was a lot of scolding these last two weeks, both from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and much of the California press, about the state Assembly’s rejection of SB 5X 1, the Senate’s bi-partisan bill to conform California education policies to the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top school reform program.

This is not a tempest in a teapot. It reflects fundamental disagreements, some philosophical, some political, some mere turf fights, over the future of the state’s K-12 schools. Either the Senate bill, by Sen. Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, or the Assembly substitute by Julia Brownley of Santa Monica, also a Democrat, which the governor threatened to veto, would have been likely to produce significant changes in the state’s school standards, in its testing program, in school transfer rules and parental rights, and in the reconstitution of failing schools.

Read the entire post: http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/7244

Race to more failure

Race to the Top Resisters are Right
Sent to USA Today  by Stephen Krashen

Those opposing California's participation in Race to the Top (RTTT) are not anti-progress: They are right. ("As schools struggle, California politics slow education reform," Dec 15). Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made it clear that the RTTP national standards plan will lead to national tests, promising far more testing than ever before. At a time when children are overwhelmed with tests, when No Child Left Behind has turned schools into test-prep academies and when education is facing severe budget cuts, the last thing we need is more standards and tests.

There are better ways to help California's education budget: USA Today notes that going along with RTTT will give California a one-time payment of "up to $700 million." California can save $500 million EVERY YEAR by dumping its useless high school exit exam, Studies of exit exams show that they do not lead to higher employment, higher earnings, or improved academic achievement.

Stephen Krashen


As schools struggle, California politics slow education reform

By Juliet Williams, The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — To education reformers, a $4.3 billion school funding competition from the Obama administration seemed like just the push California needed to start making long overdue changes to restore academic luster to the state's public schools.
But the drive to dramatically turn around a faltering system that serves more than 6 million children has run into political reality in a Legislature dominated by special interests. The result could leave the state with the nation's largest public school system ill-positioned to compete for the so-called Race to the Top funds.
Officials estimate California stands to gain up to $700 million.
Lawmakers meeting in a special session on education called by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are considering competing Democratic bills. Both are intended to clear the way for California's federal application and to deal with some of the same issues, such as increasing the number of charter schools, revamping state tests and restructuring the worst-of-the-worst schools.
But how they propose to reach those goals is vastly different, and it's unclear whether the versions can be reconciled in time for the state to meet a Jan. 19 federal application deadline.
A Schwarzenegger-backed bill by state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, and the state superintendent of public instruction gives parents more say in what happens to failing schools and makes it easier to evaluate teachers and principals based on student achievement. It also would let parents move their children out of failing districts.
After narrowly passing the state Senate in November, with several Democrats opposing it or opting to sit out the vote, that measure is now stalled in an Assembly committee. One of the most powerful and well-funded political interests in the state, the California Teachers Association, is lobbying against it.
The teachers union instead backs different legislation offered by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica.
Reform advocates say that legislative package, which passed the Assembly on Thursday, does not go nearly far enough to fix California schools. Because of that, they say it wouldn't stand a chance in a competition against other large states such as Florida and Texas, which already have made bold school reforms.
Schwarzenegger has supported many of the changes included in the federal guidelines since taking office but has not had the political muscle to get the changes through a Legislature controlled by Democrats, who receive campaign funding from the teachers union.
He said he will veto the Assembly legislation if it reaches his desk, although that is unlikely because the Senate already has passed much tougher reform measures.
"This is a Race to the Top, not a race to mediocrity or the status quo," Schwarzenegger said.
The Republican governor has been blunt about the Assembly's effort, saying its Democratic majority simply wants to water down the tougher Senate legislation. The Assembly bill, he said, won't provide a real shot at the federal money in a state that has sustained billions of dollars in education cuts during the last three fiscal years.
"The kids and education need every single dollar," Schwarzenegger said.
California's education system was once considered a national model that bred a generation of scientists and entrepreneurs, but the state has fallen to near the bottom among states in school funding and academics, earning a D in academic achievement this year from Education Week magazine's annual national schools survey. Students perform below the national average on nearly all measures, with black, Hispanic and poor children faring worst.
Nearly 2,800 of its schools are considered to be failing by federal standards.
The dispute over whether to enter the federal competition and, if so, how strong the reforms should be is dividing Democratic allies and discouraging reformers who had hoped for historic change.
Margaret Fortune, a California State University trustee who once served as an education adviser to Schwarzenegger, said she has become disillusioned. Many lawmakers put partisan interests ahead of reasonable changes in school policy, she said.
"If they were responsible leaders, they would stand up and say, 'You know what? We're leading a broken system, so we need to turn around and fix it, because this is shameful,'" said Fortune, who now runs an independent teacher-training program and has launched several charter schools.
-------------------
my response:
Yes, Ms. Fortune.  Look at prior posts on this blog about her work.
She is an "educational expert" and a member of the CSU trustees, who has never taught in a school.  She is one of the cadre of "experts" in favor of NCLB and RTTT. She has never improved a school, but she is an expert on how to do it?


----------------

Representatives of the California Teachers Association and other influential education groups, including the California School Boards Association, argue that the state should approach Race to the Top cautiously. They say lawmakers should not rush headlong into major reforms for what amounts to a relatively small pot of one-time federal money.
California, which will spend $50 billion on K-12 education this fiscal year, stands to receive between $300 million and $700 million if its application is successful.
The teachers association opposes provisions in the Senate bill that would allow parents to transfer students in persistently failing schools to other districts, expand the number of charter schools without imposing new restrictions on them and allow parents to lobby for closure or conversion to a charter when schools don't improve.
The union says the Senate legislation lacks legislative oversight in making the changes.
Patricia Rucker, a legislative advocate for the CTA, urged lawmakers during a hearing on both bills to "resist the temptation to simply race for dollars for the prestige of winning an award and a competition and instead (ask) what is the overall goal of education reform in California?"
Many reform advocates say slow progress isn't acceptable in a state where one in five high school students drops out.
"I just don't have the patience for incremental change any more," said Assemblyman Juan Arambula, an independent from Fresno who left the Democratic caucus earlier this year. He sided with Republicans in opposing the Assembly bill and backing the more stringent Senate version.
Some Democratic lawmakers, particularly Hispanics and blacks, are feeling pressure from both sides: the teachers union, which opposes dramatic changes, and community groups that are frustrated by a persistent racial achievement gap.
Alice Huffman, president of the state NAACP and a former political director of the CTA, testified before the Assembly Education Committee that reforming the state's faltering schools is an urgent civil rights issue. She said she has nieces and nephews who have graduated from California schools yet cannot read and write.
"I'm just going to say that if we don't get this done, we have really blown it one more time," she said.
The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office is urging lawmakers to take the Obama administration's education reforms seriously, warning that they are likely to provide the framework for new federal education guidelines, putting at stake billions of dollars in federal money.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Winning the "Race to the Top" Money - How to

Over the Top

Six Tips for Winning 'Race to the Top' Money

By Yong Zhao

I have been reading through the voluminous document published in the Nov. 18, 2009, Federal Register, giving the final versions of application guidelines, selection criteria, and priorities for $4 billion in competitive grants under the Race to the Top Fund, the largest education grant program in U.S. history.
From news reports, op-ed pieces, and blog posts, I can guess that many states are working hard now to prepare their applications. My reading of the criteria leads me to suggest that the following are winning strategies and actions to include, even though they may be inconsistent with research findings or common sense.
1. Stop paying teachers and principals a salary. Instead, pay them on a per-standardized-test-point basis each day. At the end of the school day, simply give each student a standardized test. Then calculate what the teacher and principal will be paid that day based on the growth of the student, that is, on how much the student has improved over the previous day.
This is true accountability and is sure to keep teachers and principals on their toes. (It also seems to be the true intention behind this requirement: “At the time the State submits its application, the State does not have any legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers at the State level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation.”)
But to do it, you must not ask the question of whether this accountability will lead to better teaching. You also will need to ignore the fact that “accountability” has driven many teachers out of the schools, and to forget about attracting highly qualified talent to the teaching profession.
2. Remove all “non-core” academic activities and courses and reduce all teaching to math and reading. What the U.S. secretary of education wants is “increasing student achievement in (at a minimum) reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the [National Assessment of Educational Progress] and the assessments required under the [Elementary and Secondary Education Act]” and “decreasing achievement gaps between subgroups in reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the NAEP and the assessments required under the ESEA.” Actually, no need to teach students these subjects; just teaching them how to pass the tests may be even more effective.
But to do so, you have to forget the reasons for education in the first place, ignore all research findings about the negative consequences of high-stakes testing, and suppress any desire to care about the students’ emotional well-being, to cultivate their creativity and entrepreneurship, or to consider their interests and strengths.

3. Make sure every child takes courses in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the more the merrier. This is because, as the guidelines state, “Emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” is a “Competitive Preference Priority,” worth 15 points, and you either get 15 points or nothing.
But this requires you to ignore research findings such as those from Lindsay Lowell and Hal Salzman, showing that “over the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities graduated roughly three times more scientists and engineers than were employed in the growing science and engineering workforce,” and that “there is no evidence of a long-term decline in the proportion of American students with the relevant training and qualifications to pursue STEM jobs.” You also must not think about what children will really need to be successful in the 21st-century global economy, such as cross-cultural competencies, foreign languages, and digital capabilities.
4. This suggestion is only for the states of Alaska and Texas, because the others have already committed themselves to doing it: Develop and adopt “a common set of K-12 standards … that are supported by evidence that they are internationally benchmarked and build toward college and career readiness by the time of high school graduation.” The other 48 states have signed on to theCommon Core State Standards Initiative spearheaded by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. So I guess the initiative counts, even though it covers only two subjects.
Well, there may be a small problem: how to prove that the standards are internationally benchmarked. Did the authors benchmark against national standards in Canada, our closest neighbor, or Australia, a large federation of states like the United States? Of course not, because these countries do not have national standards. Or perhaps they benchmarked against China, since it is our perceived competitor. Probably not, because China has been reforming its curriculum over the past two decades and loosening its national control on curriculum. Or perhaps it is against the Program for International Student Assessment or the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—yet these are tests, not curriculum standards.
To wholeheartedly embrace this suggestion, states have to overlook the damages national standards can do to education, and not take into consideration the fact that having national standards neither improves education for students nor narrows achievement gaps.
5. Write in lots of money for testing companies and assessment consultants in the application, because you will be rewarded for “developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments.” In the spirit of this recommendation, I would also suggest that you promise to test the students more frequently, at least twice a day—once when they come to school and once when they leave—because this will help you collect more data to meet the data-systems requirement and hold teachers accountable.
Of course, what this means is that you cannot think about students’ individual differences, the need for diverse talents, or the costs of standardized tests. You cannot think about who will eventually benefit from the assessments either. And in no way should you worry about the corruption that high-stakes standardized testing brings with it.
6. Oh, and while you’re at it, include a proposal to bar all children under the age of 18 from entering museums, public libraries, and music events; lock up all musical instruments in schools, and fire all music, art, and physical education teachers; close sports facilities; disconnect all Internet connections; and cut down on lunch time, because the Race to the Top initiative wants to lengthen the school year and school day, and all these are distracting kids from studying for the tests. Of course, these actions will save money as well.
But that requires you to discard the notion that creativity, talent, and technology are important for the future. You must also not think that a healthy society needs musicians, artists, and athletes. Nor can you assume that a well-rounded human being is essential for a democracy. Of course, you should also deny the fact that creativity, art, design, and music play significant roles in the world of science and technology today.
But other than all that, your new federal funding should enable you to do great things.

Yong Zhao is a university distinguished professor of education at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, where he is the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology. He is the author of Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. His Web site is http://zhao.educ.msu.edu.
Post from Education Week.

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Why School Reform Fails

Why school reform has failed.

After over a decade of test driven accountability, schools serving poor and minority students are not improved.  Why?

The people in charge of the reform, from No child Left Behind, to state developed accountability systems, and now the Race to the Top program,  are the same people who created the present  failing system.

They will not improve the system.

Reform has been stopped by the power of those in charge- they want to keep things as they are.  They think within the narrow confines of school interventions which maintain their own positions and their own leadership advantages.  So, “professionals” with a focus and training emphasizing limited views of research and testing, derive limited interventions which emphasize testing and measurement.  The last two decades of school reform have followed this direction. The post below  by Jim Crawford on the lack of evidence to support the proposed Race to the Top interventions illustrates this failure.

Anglo centered, culturally myopic, power centered, controlling, reductionist,  in the hands of the past generation.  They have refused to consider and allow to develop the culturally responsive strategies we know are necessary.  To pursue new strategies would require first that they understand the proposed changes and second that the proposed changes would continue them in the roles of leaders.  This has not happened,

One limit is that there has been little clear development of the multicultural alternatives.

While preparation ideas abound, the many subtle acts and interventions that skilled teachers use in their interactions are simply not described. =perhaps they are not describable. The issues are too complex and inter active.  Teachers can learn dozens of interactions and use them, but without a controlled and limited environment these strategies collectively lead to improved achievement, but we can not detail which intervention  made the difference.

The “ reformers” as recognized by mainstream media  can only recognize their own narrow ideological positions, dominated by positivism, and low level of testing, low quality assessments.

By holding on to these narrow- and failed- accountability measures, they have dramatically restricted teaching strategies to those that produce only marginal gains. But, their own narrow research paradigms de legitimate alternative views. And, they have failed.
   And, as developed in several posts here, there is the problem of poverty.  The U.S. has one of the most severe childhood poverty records in the developed world. It is precisely schools in these neighborhoods that fail.  The media approved "reformers" chant - no excuses.  But, that is because they don't work in schools held down by poverty.  More on this in other posts.

Excerpts from Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education. 4th. edition. 2020.

Arne Duncan: No evidence for RTTT strategies

by Jim Crawford.
ELL Advocates


Arne Duncan gave an extended interview to EdWeek staff a couple of weeks ago. I was disappointed that the resulting article gave no hint that critical questions were asked.

But on reviewing the transcript -- http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/12/02/14duncan-transcript.h29.html -- I find that he was asked (rather gently) a question I would have asked (more pointedly): What, if any, evidence supports the sweeping, radical agenda the Obama administration is promoting: unlimited charter schools, national standards and high-stakes tests, "data-driven" teacher evaluations and salaries, and large-scale closings of "failing schools"? And if there's no supporting evidence, why are you trying to bribe states into adopting such dubious "reforms" through the $4.3 billion Race to the Top Fund?

Arne's answer: "I think there’s a lot of scientific evidence that the status quo doesn’t work." Ergo, drastic measures are in order -- never mind that there's no evidence for their effectiveness and considerable evidence they will do harm. Characteristically, the EdWeek reporters were too polite to challenge that logic. 


Here's the exchange:
Q: To pick up on that evidence base, there are a lot of policies and strategies that the department seems to endorse or favor that don’t necessarily have a strong evidence base for them. President Obama has talked about restoring scientific integrity in the government decision-making process. How much of a role does the evidence play in setting policy in the department, and in things like charter schools and teacher evaluation?
Mr. Duncan: I would challenge your assumption a bit. So I would argue the whole turnaround stuff is relatively new but I think there’s a lot of scientific evidence that the status quo doesn’t work and that’s the evidence that I’m looking at. I’m looking at places where 70 to 75 percent of kids aren’t graduating and somehow that’s been okay for the country. People don’t expect anything different. I would argue that all of these things there’s lots of evidence that the current thing doesn’t work. Teacher evaluation is broken. Teacher evaluation in this country is fundamentally broken. And if someone wants to make the case that it’s good, I would love to have that debate. But there’s nobody making that case. Nobody. So let’s try to fix it. Let’s not use the excuse that we don’t have all of the answers to continue to do nothing.
We’ve tried not to be very specific. We’ve said a couple things matter: data matters, we’ve said that talent matters, we’ve said having high standards matter, and turning around things matter. How you do those things, how you get there, [there’s] lots of room to play, to get creative. No one by themselves is the answer. I’ve never said that. But again, I’d love to argue or counter anyone who says data doesn’t matter, that talent doesn’t matter, that turnarounds don’t matter, that a high bar doesn’t matter. That’s a debate I’d love to have. I think there’s pretty compelling evidence of what hasn’t worked as well as what’s possible. In a country where teacher evaluation is largely divorced from student progress, student success, how do you defend that? Again, there’s lots of gray. We’ve talked a lot about multiple measures, and not one thing. As a country we’re at zero. That’s wrong; 100 percent is wrong. There’s a big middle ground there that we got to find. Anyone who would argue that where we’re at now is good or has evidence that that’s the right thing, I don’t buy it. No one is. I went to the AFT [American Federation of Teachers] conventions, I went to the NEA [National Education Association] convention, I said teacher evaluation is broken, guess what, all the teachers cheered.
Jim Crawford. ELL Advocates