Wanted: Education Reform, Reward: $$$
In the coming months, the U.S. Department of Education will begin releasing more than $4 billion to states as a part of its Race to the Top Fund. Introduced in late July by President Obama, the program is being funded with money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the stimulus bill). According to page 1 of the program’s executive summary, Race to the Top is
a competitive grant program designed to encourage and reward States that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform; achieving significant improvement in student outcomes, including making substantial gains in student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving high school graduation rates, and ensuring student preparation for success in college and careers; and implementing ambitious plans in four core education reform areas:
• Adopting internationally-benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace;
• Recruiting, developing, retaining, and rewarding effective teachers and principals;
• Building data systems that measure student success and inform teachers and principals how they can improve their practices; and
• Turning around our lowest-performing schools.
See Obama introducing the program in July (at 3min 20 sec):
Recent headlines have focused on criticism of the plan—primarily from the NEA, AFT, and state teachers’ unions/associations—regarding merit pay, the use of test scores in teacher evaluation, and increasing the number of charter schools. What I find most interesting about this program, though, is not the debate over these issues, but the strategy President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are using to achieve their goals.
Their roll-out is quite similar to what President Bush and Secretary of Education Rod Paige attempted earlier this decade with No Child Left Behind . In that case, billions of dollars were provided to states as a part of Reading First, which pushed states to use specific reading curricula. Schools that did not meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) could lose students (and the funding that came with them) to other schools, and had to pay for students’ transportation to those other schools. And if states wanted to opt out of federally mandated testing—which state legislators in both Virginia and Utah (no hyperlink available…I’m referencing “Legislator plans to challenge feds’ No Child Left Behind rules,” Salt Lake Tribune, 11/11/04) seriously considered—they would have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
Even the funding in President Clinton’s Goals 2000: Educate America Act (signed into law in 1994) had some strings attached, which means that for at least the past 15 years federal officials have been operating under the assumption that the most effective way to bring about change in public education is with money. Whether punishing or rewarding states, or threatening to leave them out altogether, money is the driving force behind proposed education reforms. The question is, does this strategy deliver results?
I’ll have an answer to this question, which includes a few thoughts on No Child Left Behind, in my next post. In the meantime, what do you think?
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
Let me just take on one thing here: Reading First. The program, as I’m sure you know, has been criticized since the beginning for its internal conflicts of interest and rampant cronyism. Forget that teachers all too often object to a scripted curriculum — we can discuss that later. Just take a look at all of the accusations of conflict of interest. The very firm that was hired to create the program was then hired to assess its effectiveness. Plus it never screened its subcontractors for connections with publishers of reading programs. It’s widely viewed as a tainted program designed for corporate profit, not as a hallmark of innovation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/31/AR2007033100824.html
I agree with you when it comes to Reading First, Patti. However, to quote Sir Philip Sydney from The Defence of Poetry, “But what, shall the abuse of the thing make the right use odious?” In other words, if someone takes advantage of federal laws & money in certain instances, we should not abandon altogether such legislation and funding in the future. I believe we have evidence that federal laws and money can be used to push reform in a positive, effective way, so what we need to do is demand that our elected leaders act in a more ethical manner so that another Reading First incident doesn’t occur. The idea behind Reading First–a push to use research-based programs & practices–was on the money (no pun intended). The problem was in the idea’s execution (again, no pun intended), specifically that the very people who promoted using research to drive decisions in the education arena used ideology (and perhaps profit) to drive their own decisions when it came to this particular education issue.
In response to another comment. See in context »Um, Michael, this abuse has been going on for, what, eight years? And you are quoting Sir Philip Sidney, hardly a household name on this side of the pond, to defend this? No, this wrong does not make a right. Sorry, but children have suffered. No obscure quotation can make that right in my view. Or in the view of teachers and, more importantly, the children forced to endure this insane curriculum.
How’s the water in Charlottesville?
In response to another comment. See in context »Having spent no time in schools–as a researcher or practitioner–during the selection, implementation, or assessment of different reading programs, and having not read the many research articles and state reports related to Reading First, I am not equipped to enter a debate on the merits of Reading First or any other reading program. I will, however, state two things. First, I agreed with you about the abuses that occurred within the Reading First program; I did not defend it. Second, I do not believe that the poor planning and execution of Reading First should color our opinions of NCLB in its entirety.