President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that states leading the way on education reform will be eligible to compete for more than $4-billion in federal grants. The money is intended to support education reform and innovation in the classroom.
In a morning news conference the President said, "This competition will not be based on politics, ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group. Instead it will be based on a simple principle - whether a state is ready to do what works. We will use the best data available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform - and states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant. Not every state will win and not every school district will be happy with the results. But America's children, America's economy and America itself will be better for it."
At the centerpiece of the plan is the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund, a national competition which will highlight what the administration is calling effective education reform strategies in the areas of standards and assessments, teacher performance, and turning around low-performing schools.
In Washington for the announcement, Governor Christine Gregoire (D-WA), said, "I share the same goals as our federal partners. I want every one of our schools to be high-performing, and I want to ensure our teachers are able to expand their skills to be the best teachers they can be."
To get the money, the state might have to do what teacher unions don't like - link student performance to teacher evaluations. Contacted locally, the Washington Education Association declined to comment on the proposal until they read particulars of the plan. In the past the WEA taken a stand against such linkages.
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is not as optimistic as Governor Gregoire. OSPI spokesman Nathan Olson said, "The state is pretty sure, based on the information guidance received from the Department of Education, that it will be difficult for Washington to receive money in the first year of the program. We are, however pretty confident Washington will qualify when the second tier of monies is released next year. There are a lot of innovative schools doing innovative things that will help the state qualify and address achievement gap issues. "
Governor Gregoire says the legislature will need to talk about teacher evaluation, teacher pay and what the state is doing for struggling schools that are not getting better.
I WOULD NOT WANT TO BE A TEACHER NOW DAYS. IMAGINE HAVING MY ABILITY TO TEACH JUDGED BY THE TEST SCORES OF UNWILLING, DON'T CARE, LAZY, NON-INTERESTED STUDENTS FROM DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES.
CHILDREN CAN BE DEPRESSED, HYPERACTIVE, READING AND WRITING DISABLED, SCHIZOPHRENIC,UNDIAGNOSED BORDERLINE AUTISTIC AND ONLY GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE.
CLASSROOMS ARE TOO LARGE, TOO HOT , TOO COLD, TOO CONFINING AND HAVE TOO HIGH A LEVEL OF NOISE.
I AM NOT A TEACHER. NEVER WOULD BE. AND, IF TEACHERS PAY IS DEPENDENT ON STUDENT TEST SCORES YOU CAN BE SURE I WILL NEVER ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO BECOME TEACHERS.
I am a math teacher here in Washington. I have worked in many schools across our state. Higher Socio-economic areas have higher achieving students and it has nothing to do with standards or an individual teacher. Rather their home life and support systems. This is just another radical move to punish poor, underachieving students and those teachers who stay with them rather than to move into the higher economically backed schools.
If you want all students to achieve we must fully fund education for every student in the state. When one school has a swimming program and one is cutting it's few teachers, we have an equity issue. This is not a racial barrier, those are easy to cross. This is an economic barrier which attacks all races of poor people.