Press
January 27, 2010
Next Bunch Of Obama Education Reforms To Offer More Carrots
(From Newsweek Blog "The Gaggle," January 27, 2010)
By Patrice Wingert
When the Obama administration first proposed having states duke it out for a share of a $4 billion education-reform fund, critics expected the whole enterprise to either be largely ignored or dissolve into political infighting. But instead, the Race to the Top competition has proved so successful in motivating states to accelerate their education-reform efforts that the administration has new plans to offer such competitions on an annual basis. President Obama will also announce tonight that the Department of Education will be offering a new competition to push states to create more and better preschool programs. During a briefing Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that the country doesn't "need any more studies" to prove that high-quality preschool education can significantly close the achievement gap between rich and poor. Instead, he said, the country just needs to offer such programs to more kids. The president "wants to dramatically increase access and give kids a level playing field," Duncan said. "If kids don't come to school ready to learn and ready to read, it's very tough for even the best kindergarten teachers to close that gap." During the presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly promised that he would expand early education programs but has focused little attention on the issue during his first year.
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Obama's First State of the Union Address to Focus On Jobs
(From USA Today, January 27, 2010)
By RICHARD WOLF
In excerpts of his speech released by the White House on Wednesday evening, the president praised Americans for "great decency and great strength" in the face of economic adversity.
"After one of the most difficult years in our history, they remain busy building cars and teaching kids; starting businesses and going back to school," Obama was expected to say. "They are coaching little league and helping their neighbors. As one woman wrote to me, 'We are strained but hopeful, struggling but encouraged.' "
The focus of the speech will be "getting our economy moving again," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said earlier on Wednesday. Based on the excerpts released ahead of the president's address, he was expected to press federal lawmakers to continue to press for earmark changes. "Tonight, I'm calling on Congress to publish all earmark requests on a single website before there's a vote so that the American people can see how their money is being spent."
Based on those excerpts, the president also was expected to call for a crackdown on the way lobbyists do business with official Washington.
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January 22, 2010
New York Races to the Bottom
(From City Journal, January 22, 2010)
By CHARLES UPTON SAHM
Unconscionable. Shameful. Deplorable. Despicable. Those are just a few adjectives that come to mind to describe the New York State Legislature's failure to pass commonsense education reforms that would have qualified New York for a share of the federal government's $4.35 billion Race to the Top initiative. As a result, New York taxpayers have probably lost out on some $700 million in federal education funding, and the state has missed a golden opportunity to improve the educational prospects of its neediest schoolchildren.
When the Obama administration announced the criteria for its Race to the Top grants competition last summer, it seemed that the education-reform movement had reached a tipping point. Here was a Democratic administration backing cutting-edge reforms like rigorous academic standards, data-driven instruction, performance pay for teachers, and the takeover of struggling schools. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made it clear that states that inhibited the growth of charter schools or prohibited the use of students' test scores when evaluating teachers would be deemed ineligible for Race to the Top grants.
Most states responded by embracing the tenets of Race to the Top. Tennessee, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and Massachusetts passed charter-friendly laws that lifted caps on the number of charters and allowed public money to be used for their construction. California, Indiana, and Wisconsin scrapped laws that barred the use of student test scores in teacher assessments. Just two states still have such data firewalls: Nevada and New York.
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January 20, 2010
Under Microscope: Analyzing Colo.'s Race To Top Application
(From State Bill Colorado, January 20, 2010)
By NANCY MITCHELL
Will Colorado's desire for collaboration doom the state's chances of winning the Race to the Top?
That question lingered Tuesday after the state submitted its application to try to secure $377 million of the $4.35 billion federal grant.
Analysts who've followed the highly competitive national education reform competition for the past year have typically placed Colorado among the top 10 contenders for the prize.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan acknowledged as much during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.
"We're expecting to get a great application from Colorado," Duncan said, declining more specific comment on any individual state's chances.
But others were quick to point out what they see as the plan's greatest weakness - the creation of a council to figure out how to link teacher pay, retention, dismissal and tenure to student academic growth rather than the details of a plan doing exactly that.
Nationally, a former U.S. Department of Education official noted Colorado was among the states opting for buy-in from stakeholders such as teachers' unions over the creation of a definitive proposal.
"The state decided against making tough calls on teacher evaluations, potentially knocking a frontrunner back several spots," wrote Andy Smarick on the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's blog.
Be bold, or collaborative?
One D.C. insider slotted Colorado behind states such as Tennessee, where the teachers' union signed on to a plan linking 50 percent of a teacher's annual evaluation to measures of student academic progress.
Florida also is favored over Colorado, though that state's union president publicly fought a proposal linking teacher evaluations to student growth and requiring that data be used to implement merit pay.
Continue reading "Under Microscope: Analyzing Colo.'s Race To Top Application"....
In Failing To 'Race To The Top,' Albany Dysfunction Once Again On Display
(From Press Connects, January 20, 2010)
By CARA MATTHEWS
ALBANY -- Other states changed charter school laws to increase their odds of getting federal "Race to the Top" education funds, but New York officials couldn't reach a compromise on last-minute legislation to do that and submitted their application minutes before Tuesday's deadline.
The frenzy that took place in recent days as lawmakers and the governor tried to reach a compromise and pass a bill, and the ultimate failure to get anything accomplished, have renewed criticism that the state Legislature is dysfunctional.
"This really was a last-minute attempt at addressing something that the Legislature knew was necessary for a while. That's a common problem with the Legislature," said Lawrence Norden, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice, which has dubbed the New York Legislature as the most dysfunctional in the country.
The state Board of Regents has been preparing the application for months. Gov. David Paterson sent a letter to lawmakers Jan. 12, a week before the deadline, about a bill he said would improve the state's competitiveness for a Race to the Top grant.
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Duncan Carves Deep Marks On Policy In First Year
(From Education Week, January 19, 2010)
By MICHELE MCNEIL
A year ago, Arne Duncan was known as a long-serving urban district chief who had used his collegial management style to push innovation and close failing schools in Chicago.
This week, he enters his second year as U.S. secretary of education pursuing a similar national policy agenda that could place him among the most influential leaders in his department's 30-year history.
Empowered by up to $100 billion in economic-stimulus aid for education--and the support of President Barack Obama, whom he has long known--Mr. Duncan has pressed hard on such priorities as charter schools, teacher performance pay, common academic standards, and turnarounds of low-performing schools.
He has used his bully pulpit to assess blame for a K-12 system he sees as marred by mediocre student performance, dismal graduation rates in some cities, and stubborn achievement gaps between minority and white students.
Observers are now watching to see whether Mr. Duncan will succeed in codifying the administration's agenda through the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, last revised eight years ago as the No Child Left Behind law.
And as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enters its second and final year, Mr. Duncan is expected to continue wielding the leverage that the stimulus law's nearly $10 billion in competitive-grant programs for education gives him.
Already, he has held out the prospect of $4 billion in Race to the Top Fund grants to persuade states to lift their caps on charter schools and to ease the way for teacher merit-pay programs. ("States Change Policies With Eye to Winning Federal Grants," Jan. 6, 2010.)
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