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Absent teachers
What slowed Ohio in the Race to the Top
(From The Akron Beacon Journal, April 28, 2010)
Ohio lost out in Round One of the Race to the Top awards. If knowing one's weaknesses is half of a battle, Ohio should be halfway to winning $400 million in federal competitive grants for school reform. The reviews after Ohio's 10th-place finish have thoroughly apprised state officials of the flaws in the first-round application and presentation.
A recent analysis of Ohio's performance, by Education Reform Now, Democrats for Education Reform and the Education Equality Project, concluded the state may have promised ''more reform than it can deliver'' and lost points in all categories for ''repeated lack of clarity and specificity.'' In effect, Ohio lost credibility regarding how in practical and precise terms the reform would be achieved statewide.
Particularly troubling, Ohio fared poorest on the crucial measures in the competition dealing with teacher evaluations, equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals and tying student achievement to the teacher evaluation, compensation and promotion structure.
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April 9, 2010
Why New York stumbled out of the blocks
(From Crain's Insider, April 9, 2010)
By ERIK ENGQUIST and DANIEL MASSEY
President Obama has said teacher unions cannot stand in the way of education reform, but he gave them a way to do just that in his Race to the Top contest. The contradiction helped doom New York's initial application for $803 million in federal money, and could come into play again as the state applies for $700 million.
Bids were scored partly on how much labor support they had, so unions could sabotage them by withholding endorsements. The New York Times reported online that union representatives signed on to the state's application in only 61% of districts. Union support was 100% and 93% in the two states that won grants. The United Federation of Teachers was a major holdout.
Unions are wary of Race to the Top because it promotes charter schools and calls for reforming the way that teachers are evaluated. New York's evaluation system is primitive: Teachers are deemed satisfactory or unsatisfactory by principals. The White House would like tenure and salary decisions to reflect a more nuanced process that considers student test scores.
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April 8, 2010
D.C. Deal Puts Merit Pay for Teachers on the Syllabus
(From The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2010)
By BARBARA MARTINEZ
School districts around the country are eyeing a tentative deal that would make unionized teachers in Washington, D.C., eligible for merit pay, although district officials know replicating the model will hardly be easy.
For years, teachers unions have fought efforts to link members' compensation to improved outcomes in their classrooms, partly because of the difficulty of tying one teacher's efforts to student learning.
The deal between the district and the local teachers' union, announced Wednesday, is a coup for D.C.'s aggressive schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, who had long sought to inject performance criteria into teacher evaluations for her 45,000-student system.
Teachers in the D.C. system can currently make a maximum of $87,000, but under the new system, that would rise to up to $147,000.
"We're really talking about being able to offer salaries that would compel people to become a teacher because they know they're going to be compensated at the right level," Ms. Rhee said.
She added that the new contract also gets rid of "ridiculous hurdles" to removing teachers who are not producing results. "If you are rated ineffective at the end of the year, you are terminated from the system," she said.
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Bala Cynwyd investors donate $1.5M to Williams
(From The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 8, 2010)
By SUSAN SNYDER and TOM INFIELD
Three Bala Cynwyd investment moguls who say they share State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams' passion for charter schools and education reform have given his gubernatorial campaign as much as $1.5 million.
The eye-popping amount, given through political action committees that support charter schools and school choice, elevates Williams to a legitimate contender for the state's top office and could make school choice a major issue in the election.
The money came from Jeff Greenberg, Arthur Dantchik, and Jeff Yass, managing directors and three of six founders of the Susquehanna International Group, a Bala Cynwyd investment firm formed by college friends in 1987, according to its Web site.
Efforts to reach Greenberg, Dantchik, and Yass for comment were unsuccessful. The Susquehanna group's office referred questions to Joe Watkins, who runs one of the PACs that donated to Williams.
The three businessmen "clearly have a strong interest in school reform and school choice and a number of these options that provide students with the best possible opportunities," Watkins said, citing vouchers, charter schools, and private schools among the options.
Watkins runs a newly formed political PAC supportive of school choice that donated $250,000 to Williams.
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$3.4 Billion Is Left in Race to Top Aid
(From Education Week, April 7, 2010)
By LESLI A. MAXWELL and MICHELE MCNEIL
By selecting just two states as first-round Race to the Top winners, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is leaving $3.4 billion on the table for the remaining states to vie for in round two.
Delaware and Tennessee beat out 14 other finalists last week to win the first grants awarded in the $4 billion Race to the Top Fund competition.
Mr. Duncan praised the two states, which edged out front-runners Florida and Louisiana, for mustering strong district and teachers'-union support for their plans, for having superior data systems, and for submitting comprehensive proposals that touched "every single child" statewide.
And he challenged states to compete as vigorously for round-two grants, saying there could be 10 to 15 winners. Applications are due June 1, and the awards will be made in September.
"We now have two states that will blaze the path for the future of education reform," Mr. Duncan said in a conference call with reporters. In looking ahead to round two, he said, "I challenge states to put their best foot forward. We want to fund as many strong proposals as possible."
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April 7, 2010
Lobbyists Renew Efforts to Lift Cap on Charter Schools
(From WNYC, April 7, 2010)
By BETH FERTIG
A renewed lobbying campaign is underway to lift the cap on charter schools. New York lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal "Race to the Top" aid partly because it allows only 200 charters. Joe Williams of the lobbying group Education Reform Now says he's working in new ways to convince lawmakers to lift that cap, so the state can apply for the second round of grants in June.
"We're trying to bring a level of sophistication to the advocacy effort here that the charter school movement hasn't had in the past," Williams says.
He says he's raising money from charter supporters in the financial community for Internet ads and lobbying. But despite Gov. David Paterson's support for more charters, the teachers' union has been wary, and some Democrats still want more oversight of the privately managed public schools.
Onorato, Corbett lead fundraising battle
(From The Morning Call, April 7, 2010)
By JOHN L. MICEK
Republican Attorney General Tom Corbett raised more money for his gubernatorial bid in the first three months of 2010, but Democrat Dan Onorato has a bigger campaign war chest, according to records filed Tuesday with the Department of State.
Onorato, the Allegheny County executive and one of four in the Democratic primary field, raised $1.1 million during the first quarter of 2010, spent $662,000 and had $6.7 million left after expenses.
''We are confident we will be able to continue to educate voters about Dan's record as county executive and his vision for Pennsylvania,'' Onorato's campaign manager, Kevin Kinross, said in a statement.
Corbett, a two-term attorney general who's one of two people seeking the GOP nomination for governor during the May 18 primary, raised $1.77 million between Jan. 1 and March 29. He spent $943,000 and had $4 million left on-hand.
''It's never easy,'' Corbett's campaign manager, Brian Nutt, said of the perpetual scrounging for campaign dollars. ''There's a lot of work that goes into it.''
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