Race to the Buck

I had the opportunity to participate in a second statewide conference call with the Governor's staff as he tries to secure passage (another "special" session) that would allow California to engage in the "Race to the Top" federal program.  While the goals of Race to the Top MAY be good (depending upon your view), I find it most curious that the Governor seems most interested in the money attached to the program.  As any number of infrastructure issues that need to be addressed (e.g., the test, the data, turning around low-performing schools, open enrollment, etc.) to authentically move us forward in the Race to the Top program as well as the "Race to the Top" global reality.  In the call, the answer to those issues was repeatitively, "we aren't worrying about that right now, we just need to do this because the 'feds are requiring it'" -- a compelling rationale?  I always thought that, at least on a Constitutional basis, education was a State's Rights Issue.

It is also clear that California's solution and compromise with CTA will be to make the minor adjustments to the law (to qualify for Race to the Top) with a clear mandate that local school districts don't really have to change anything -- they can negotiate all of those issues with their local CTA chapter (which is pretty much where we are already).  In fact, SPI O'Connell has already stated that there is no prohibition of using data in evaluations (which seems to be the key element of this debate) and has cited Long Beach as the example.

I am fundamentally FOR reform of our system to better address the needs of ALL of our students in all of our communities.  I am NOT for legalese that qualifies us for ONE-time funding (Race to the Top) and only stalls and exacerbates our current state systemic issues, which I think was Sec of Ed Arne Duncan's point.