Compromising on Education Reform?
EmailThe Obama administration today launched its competition to award stimulus money to states that overhaul their school systems and embrace education reforms. While the Education Department is pushing a controversial agenda, the final guidelines to compete include several union-backed changes. Some critics say the administration compromised too much in its “Race to the Top.”
Read Mary Bruce’s report and tell me if you agree.
Today the Education Department opened the “Race To The Top” grant competition for states to vie for a piece of $4.35 billion in stimulus funding – the largest amount of discretionary federal spending for education ever. After considering roughly 1,100 comments on the draft guidelines, the administration included union-supported changes in the final application. While the unions expressed satisfaction with the plan, reform advocates and policy experts claim the administration watered-down its agenda.
President Obama’s education reforms contain several controversial elements, including evaluating teachers based on student performance and embracing charter schools. The unions offered strong objections to both reform criteria in their comments on the proposed guidelines and today the Department appeared to budge in those areas.
In order to compete states must eliminate legal barriers to linking teacher evaluations to student performance. But the final application also encourages states to use “multiple measures” to evaluate teachers, including peer reviews. While the Department continues to promote the use of charter schools, the reform initiative was moved to a section on “general selection criteria.” In the draft guidelines, charters were highlighted as a means to turn around low-performing schools.
“The Department of Education worked hard to strike the right balance between what it takes to get system wide improvement for schools and kids, and how to measure that improvement,” said President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten, who went on to praise the Department for responding to their call for greater teacher involvement in evaluating systems.
Reform advocates, however, are speaking out against the changes. “The innovative reform piece was charter schools, they’ve muted that. The teacher reform piece was performance pay, they’ve muted that,” said Jeanne Allen, president of the nonprofit Center for Education Reform. “We thought Arne [Duncan] liked the girl with the brains but he’s dumped us for the popular girl…. The education establishment got to them.”
“I’m terribly worried that they seem to have backed away further from the parts that I thought were most promising,” said Frederick Hess, an education policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute.
The administration strongly disagrees. “I don’t think there’s anything that’s watered-down,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said this afternoon in a conference call with reporters. “The critique we’re getting is that this is very, very tough and we do think it’s tough. We think it’s tough but fair.”
The Secretary said the final application actually places an increased emphasis on charters. “We moved it out of just turning around the lowest performing schools and actually made charters more important,” he said.
Several states have already taken action to eliminate barriers to compete. California and Wisconsin, for example, have changed their legislation to allow teacher pay to be linked to student performance. Other states, including Tennessee, Ohio, Connecticut and Rhode Island, defeated proposed cuts to charter school funding and raised their charter caps.
The application unveiled today also lays out a 500-point system for scoring states' abilities to meet the four "assurances": using college- and career-ready standards, building a workforce of highly effective educators, creating data systems to support student achievement, and turning around the lowest-performing schools. Applications will be evaluated by the Department and a team of peer reviewers.
Duncan made clear there is “no fixed number” for how many states will receive money. Funding will only go to the states with the most aggressive proposals and proven ability to raise the bar and close achievement gaps, he said. Based on budget guidelines released by the Department, four states – California, Texas, New York and Florida – could get as much as $700 million each. Smaller states could earn amounts ranging from $20 to $400 million.
Critics are concerned the money may be used by states to fill budget gaps rather than real reform in the classroom. “Money is fungible,” Hess noted.
The Department will hold two rounds of competition for the grants. The first round of applications will be accepted until the middle of January and funding will be awarded next spring. The second round of applications will be due June 1 with winners announced by September 30, 2010.
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the money may be used by states to fill budget gaps rather than real reform in the classroom…of course that is going to happen since the states getting the largest amount (CA, NY & FL) face such budget shortfalls already. But have no fear there is plenty of Obama’s secret stash to go around. In Chicago politics friends are always taken care of.
Posted by: CountryInTrouble | November 12, 2009, 6:18 pm 6:18 pm
You cannot evaluate teachers based on student performance because not all teachers have the same type of students. When you teach in an area where the majority of students come into the classroom with outside issues, you just aren’t on an even footing with teachers in other areas.
Yes, these children can learn, but they need help and time and the number of students per classroom just doesn’t allow you to give them the individual attention they need.
In addition, parents in low income areas are often working two jobs and can’t give the kids attention at home, either. Have you tried teaching children who have been living pretty much on their own since they were about six or seven? They think they’re grown in first grade and don’t pay any attention to the teachers at all.
We need something completely different. We need a system that allows for these children to be in smaller classrooms with teachers specifically trained to deal with children who have difficult home situations.
It’s wrong to expect every teacher to be a miracle worker. They have lives and children of their own. To be one of these miracle working teachers you see in movies, they would have to give up pretty much everything else in their lives. That’s not a fair expectation.
Posted by: Margaret Studer | November 12, 2009, 6:49 pm 6:49 pm
Even if it doesn’t go down the shortfall pit. It will go to untion priorities, will not benefit students.
Posted by: C Moreland | November 12, 2009, 7:30 pm 7:30 pm
These reformers are not only giving the wrong answers to our educational problems they are not even asking the right questions. The problem is not that our students are scoring low on tests its that they are not becoming good learners. Standardized testing is a total crock that only rewards good test takers and punishes those who think out of the box. A highly appropriate example is this horrific attempt at reform. Its being proposed and supported by good test takers (how else did they reach the top of the educational hierarchy?). Yet, their solutions just continue the sad trajectory that got us into this mess in the first place. They cant think out of the box. If what we want as a nation is to have a bunch of automatons then continue on the course of “reform” we are on, but if we want to cultivate innovation in all walks of life then dump standardized testing for good.
Posted by: Mark from atlanta | November 12, 2009, 7:31 pm 7:31 pm
As one reads the report the traps set forth in the form of vague language should stand notice to us all. Standardized testing in the form of annual state exams measure a child’s ability to perform during a three hour period, one time a year. Students realize that the assessments don’t factor into their grades. The results aren’t known for months, 6-9 specifically, after “the test.” The list of issues is endless. So, what if we reframed the discourse? What might be some of the benefits of channeling energy, time, resoures, and funding into an educational system that supports the teaching and learning of attitudes and dispositions that our children can draw upon when they are faced with dilemnas, problems, polarities, and uncertainties? Qualities that support the often heard, “21 st Century Learning Skills.” What then might our children, schools, communities nation and world look like, sound like, feel like? What if we stepped up to our promises of hope, possibility, service?
Posted by: scott from NY | November 12, 2009, 8:52 pm 8:52 pm
I marvel at Obama’s label as ‘liberal’. The ‘reforms’ he pushes are sooo George/Jeb Bush in nature. I’ve taught in Florida for 22 years and our students are buried under a mountain of standardized testing that cuts out a month of instructional time to administer. Students get discouraged and drop out. Funding is partially withheld from schools that don’t have enough high-performing students to make an ‘A’ grade, schools that need every dime they can get because the state legislature doesn’t want to fund education. I hate the idea that we as a society are so mercenary as to want to attach money to a child’s performance on standardized tests. How is that going to benefit teaching and learning? It will just increase pressure and hostilities.
Posted by: Vikki | November 12, 2009, 9:28 pm 9:28 pm
As a retired teacher, I believe this
is a good compromise. It is tough. It
is fair. I doubt Mr. Hess would like
to be evaluated if numerous members
of his staff failed to show up on
a regular basis because of various
concerns related to their family life,
failed to pay attention because they
just did have enough to eat or their
teeth hurt because they couldn’t
afford a dentist or they just move
here and couldn’t understand English.
Posted by: Cynthia Rapak | November 13, 2009, 12:50 am 12:50 am
When trying to put out a fire you spray the base of the fire, not the flames. When pulling weeds, you don’t just whack off the top of the weed, you yank out the root. These clichés and more apply to how we handle our eroding education system. We are constantly whacking the school systems for the problem kids we create. The problem kid starts in the home- or the lack there of in our double income society. The base of these flames is the family. We should stop attacking the school system for failing kids and start attacking the parents of the failing kids. Maybe we fine or reward parents based on their children’s grades. If the parents do not pay the fine or the child is constantly failing CPS should get involved. Just a thought.
Posted by: Phil | November 13, 2009, 2:05 am 2:05 am
If we can evaluate salesperson performance despite the fact that they have differing customers, why can’t we evaluate teachers with differing students?
The education establishment has to leave it’s fantasy world of ‘job for life, guaranteed pay raises, generous pensions, and no co-pay healthcare’ – this small bit of reality won’t hurt that much…
Posted by: N2vip | November 13, 2009, 7:36 am 7:36 am
It’s sad to continually hear the well-being of teachers pitted against the well-being of students. There is so much misunderstanding of the job that teachers work, the hours they put in, and their own personal money they spend on their classroom and students (I’ve never seen another profession where you are expected to pay out of pocket for the basic tools of the job like lined paper or baskets to place classroom books in). Teachers constantly get railed against for standing up for their rights as people and workers. I can guarantee you that when teachers aren’t taken care of, the students suffer.
The teacher’s unions are easy targets to aim at when we look at the problems of the education system. I agree that the unions need to be reformed and that there are rules on the books that are outdated, but they also serve a serious function. This is especially important in a profession where more and more responsibility is thrust upon teachers without giving them time in the day to complete them. When teachers have to continually put their personal lives and their families on hold because of their workload, the children don’t get full human beings in front of their classrooms. Although this may sound antithetical in the age of focusing on testable skills, one of the most important aspects of being a teacher is the relationship you have with your students.
While it doesn’t have to be, the push for Charter Schools has really turned into a quiet union busting tactic. Not all, but many of the new schools receiving Charters, are non-unionized. Unless there is an emphasis placed on supporting only unionized charter schools, then we will all suffer.
Being a teacher is not the same as being a salesperson. It’s unfortunate that we are adopting policies based on that attitude.
Posted by: Noah Goodman | November 13, 2009, 12:02 pm 12:02 pm
One of the greatest complaints over the American education system has been its top-down approach; for many years policymakers at the federal level have attempted to dictate education policy at the state and local level. Over time a broad grass-roots coalition of concerned parents and politicians began to push for more local control. This bottom-up approach to learning would be found in states gaining control from the federal government, districts gaining control from the states, schools gaining control from the districts, and eventually, parents gaining control from the schools. Each attempt to take charge in school reform has come with ever-increasing calls for accountability. As will be seen, determining how to assess accountability and who should be held accountable for failing students is far from cut and dry.
Posted by: homework helper | November 14, 2009, 3:10 am 3:10 am
Government spending created many jobs in the Great Depression, Hoover Dam for example. Some paint that as socialism, others as a wise public investment — saw a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth
Posted by: RField | November 14, 2009, 4:24 pm 4:24 pm
Speaking as a parent, parents know far better than any standardized test whether the teacher is being effective in teaching their child. The base problem is that there are not enough parents involved in overseeing their child’s progress. The other problem is that there are too many adults taught by their parents during childhood to believe that teachers are stupid and that being disrespectful to them is acceptable.
Posted by: jan | November 15, 2009, 7:58 am 7:58 am
I have been a teacher in Florida for seven years in a title 1 school, and that is the main problem: we don’t have enough parents to be involved in overseeing their child’s progress, if we don’t have the support at home to help those students to be proficient in reading and Math, part of the educatioal system will be in trouble… I am also a middle school parent and I assure you when I look the report card everyday, when I contact my son’s teachers, when I monitor his homework, project and tests everyday, I get wonderful results…
Posted by: Mathteacher | November 15, 2009, 11:14 am 11:14 am
Based on budget guidelines released by the Department, four states – California, Texas, New York and Florida – could get as much as $700 million each. Smaller states could earn amounts ranging from $20 to $400 million
I BELIVE THAT WRONG ALL STATE SHOULD GET THE SAME AMOUNT. I ALSO READ ON ANTHEIR POST evaluate teachers based on student performance because not all teachers have the same type of students. THAT SAID Obama MAY GO AFTER PARENT IF THEIR FAIL. NO MATTER WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE SCHOOLS WHITH MORE EDUCTION TEACHER LIKE IF A KID HAS AUSTIM A AUSTIM TEACHER SOULD TEACH THAT KID. NOT JUST A TEACHER THAT DON’T ANYTHING ABOUT IT. PLUS SCHOOLS SHOULD HAVE A HAND ON CLASS AN A BOOK CLASS ON THE SAME SUBJECT. SOME LEARN BETTER HAND ON OTHEIRS BY THE BOOK.
Posted by: mark | November 15, 2009, 3:38 pm 3:38 pm