Race to the Top's Dropouts

UPDATED 5/28/2010

The deadline for state applications in Phase Two of the Race to the Top (RttT) competition is next Tuesday, June 1st. Only two states, Delaware and Tennessee, succeeded in winning funding in Phase One. The U.S. Department of Education has estimated that 10-15 states will win funding in Phase Two.

With the higher stakes -- more states will be funded this go 'round and this could be the final competition (despite the Obama Administration's request for a third round of RttT funding) -- more skirmishes have broken out, particularly between would-be reformers and teachers' unions. The nastiest of these disputes appears to have been in Minnesota, which apparently scuttled its application as a result. Just check out these quotes:

Governor Tim Pawlenty, 2012 Republican presidential aspirant: "Unfortunately, the DFL-controlled Legislature in Minnesota refuses to pass these initiatives because the they are beholden to Education Minnesota, which is the most powerful interest group in Minnesota. What we saw in this session should be an embarrassment to the DFL-controlled Legislature. They continue to put the interests of union members ahead of the interests of schoolchildren and education accountability."

Education Commissioner Alice Seagren charged that the state had been "bought and sold" by Education Minnesota, the state teachers' union and made "legislators afraid to step up."

Education Minnesota teachers union president Tom Dooher said that Pawlenty was doing "a great disservice to the state of Minnesota" by deciding not to apply for the second-round grants. "The problem with the governor is that if you disagree with him about policy he calls you an obstructionist. Tim Pawlenty has had eight years to do something about eliminating the achievement gap. Now, given one last chance, he does nothing."

Aggressive policy action has occurred in an attempt to win Phase 2 funding. Colorado's new teacher tenure and evaluation law has been widely heralded as a potential model for the nation. Florida's simplistic, poorly designed legislation, which would have based half of a teacher's evaluation and salary on a single test score, was wisely vetoed by Charlie Crist, the state's Republican governor and now-independent candidate for U.S. Senate.

Other states where notable policy changes have passed, potentially boosting Phase Two competitiveness, include Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland (although on-going disagreements and lack of union support may hurt), North Carolina, and Oklahoma. Legislative efforts continue at the eleventh hour in states like Kentucky, New York (5/28 update), and Pennsylvania. The District of Columbia's IMPACT teacher evaluation system and recent teachers' contract agreement could help its chances, but the lack of support from the Washington Teachers' Union and contentious relationship between the WTU and DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee won't help.

All states are busy gathering stakeholder support for their applications. The deal struck in Rhode Island to save the jobs of teachers in Central Falls should boost that state's chances in Phase Two; the recent announcement that more local teachers' unions as well as the state AFT chapter will sign onto the state's application also bodes well. The New Jersey Education Association, which opposed the state's Phase One application, announced its support for Phase Two. [6/1 Update: Apparently, Governor Christie undid this compromise at the 11th hour today.] Other states that have announced greater stakeholder support than in Phase One include Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio. Others have set this week as a deadline for districts and unions to support the state application.

Let's look at which states are -- and aren't -- competing in Phase Two. In total, 38 states (and DC) expressed an intent to apply in Phase Two, but by my count 35 states and DC will actually submit an application by the due date (ID, MN and WV filed intents but have since pulled out). By my count, six states which did not submit an application in Phase One are applying in Phase Two: Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada and Washington.

Here's the full breakdown:

OUT (13)
Phase One Applicants (9)
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Minnesota
Oregon
South Dakota
Virginia
West Virginia
Wyoming

Phase One Non-Applicants (4)
Alaska
North Dakota
Texas
Vermont

IN (36)
Phase One Applicants (30)
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California (applying in partnership with only six large urban school districts)
Colorado
Connecticut
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Massachusetts (state education commish has suggested state may not apply)
Michigan
Missouri
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Utah
Wisconsin

Phase One Non-Applicants (6)
Maine
Maryland
Mississippi
Montana
Nevada
Washington

PHASE ONE WINNERS (2)
Delaware
Tennessee

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Inn-O-Vate

Yesterday the U.S. Education Department released proposed regulations to govern the $650 million Investing in Innovation Fund, part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, along with the $4 billion Race to the Top fund.

Education Week's Politics K-12 blog has a good summary of the proposed regulations, and the New York Times and Washington Post have articles worth reading as well.

Individual school districts or groups of districts can apply for the i3 grants, and entrepreneurial nonprofits can join with school districts to submit applications.

Under the proposed priorities, grants would be awarded in three categories:

• Scale-up Grants: The largest possible grant category is focused on programs and practices with the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of students. Applicants must have a strong base of evidence that their program has had a significant effect on improving student achievement.
• Validation Grants: Existing, promising programs that have good evidence of their impact and are ready to improve their evidence base while expanding in their own and other communities.
• Development Grants: The smallest grant level designed to support new and high-potential practices whose impact should be studied further.

Here is the link to the Education Department press release.

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Abandon All Hope (For Reform) Ye Who Enter Here!

At first glance, one might dismiss a recent policy brief authored by a former Bush Administration official as a partisan diatribe against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Obama Administration. After all, a chief conclusion of the brief authored for the American Enterprise Institute by Andy Smarick (former Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Spellings-era Education Department and in 'W's White House with the Domestic Policy Council), is: "It appears all but certain that the ARRA’s $75 billion in formula-based education programs are a lost cause for education reform. These funds have been used almost exclusively to fill budget holes, and cash-strapped states and districts will likely use what remains of these funds for similar, reform-averse purposes."

Abandon all hope (for reform) ye who enter here!

That quoted summary language in the paper *is* perhaps a bit over the top. A "lost cause"? Really? And that's certainly been the takeaway of some blog accounts of this paper (such as this). But that's not really what Smarick is saying nor is it the most important part of this AEI brief. And, as much as he is making that point, his 'lacking in reform' criticism is directed more at the 50 states than at the federal government.

Economic stimulus and a minimization of a short-term funding cliff were among the main aims of ARRA and its education-focused formula dollars. I don't think anyone seriously expected differently. If you read the ARRA web page, it largely spells this out. Now, the Education Department did envision that State Fiscal Stabilization Funding would be used to promote reform as well, and despite an initial look by the GAO, some dollars may accomplish reform, but how on earth could there yet be any real evidence of reform let alone impact when the 2009-10 school year has just begun in most places?!? In addition, as Smarick notes, the economic downturn and its effect on state budgets was far worse than anticipated at the time that ARRA was enacted in early 2009, which lessened the likelihood of these dollars doing anything less than filling holes.

Smarick's take on the competitive aspects of ARRA -- the Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation (I3) funds -- is generally fair and balanced. He raises important questions about the general risks to any reform push, and specifically to ARRA. Smarick identifies several factors that may reduce the likelihood that competitive dollars will further education reform: on-going state budgetary challenges, resistance to specific reform components, and lack of faithful and vigorous implementation. He warns of "Trojan horse" applications where states will seek the money, but won't use it for reform. Of course, unmentioned are a whole host of other potential roadblocks, such as resistance from school districts, lack of buy-in from teachers and school administrators, lack of capacity to implement reforms, consultants and subcontractors who can't deliver promised expertise or technical assistance, data systems that cannot accurately match student and teacher data, etc.

Read the brief. Or check out a summary at Flypaper.

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RttT: Terminate This Law!

A new Education Week story ('California Actions on 'Race to the Top' Scrutinized') by Alyson Klein reports on efforts underway in California and New York to make statutory changes that would theoretically strengthen those states' chances for Race to the Top competitive funding. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is leading the charge in the Golden State to overhaul a law that restricts linking student assessment data with individual teacher performance.

The Republican governor last month directed the Democratic-controlled California legislature to consider enacting a package of education redesign measures—including scrapping a law blocking the state from linking student and teacher data—in hopes of improving the state’s competitive posture.

“Our laws that we have in place here in our state do not really kind of match up with what the Obama administration is looking for,” he said last month. “We are going to put together in legislation all of the things that the Obama administration is actually calling for. These are all policies that are great, actually, for the state of California and that are great for our kids.”

In addition to seeking a change in the way the state uses data to measure student, teacher, and school performance, Mr. Schwarzenegger asked lawmakers to repeal California’s charter school cap, expand public school choice, step up turnaround efforts for struggling schools, and enact alternative-pay plans for educators.

And the governor wants lawmakers to pass those measures by early October, so that California could be eligible for the first of two rounds of Race to the Top grant funding, which is slated to go out in March.

But even if states like California (and New York, Nevada, and Wisconsin with similar student-teacher data 'firewall' restrictions) make such statutory changes, there is no guarantee of winning Race to the Top funds. Much of that end game will come down to the competitiveness of these states' applications vis a vis other states as well as the scoring rubric (expected in November) that will be used by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to evaluate applications.

As I said in this recent post, "until the ED makes clear how it is going to balance the two primary [RttT] selection criteria -- Reform Conditions and Reform Plan ... states that may not be as strong in having created these conditions for education reform can only hope that the ED weighs proposed Reform Plan strategies equally to or more heavily than the Reform Conditions criteria." If ED chooses to steer the money primarily to states that have a proven track record of education policy reform and the results to back it up, then middling and poorly prepared states cannot hope that a stellar application and last-minute statutory and regulatory changes will bail them out from having been reform laggards in recent years.

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RttT: Redefining Teacher Effectiveness

My colleagues and I at the New Teacher Center have offered up what I believe to be a balanced and thoughtful series of recommendations to strengthen the teacher and principal effectiveness provisions in the U.S. Department of Education's proposed Race to the Top regulations. You can find the NTC's initial public comments -- submitted on August 21 -- here. And you find an addendum -- filed yesterday -- offering recommendations for specific language additions, here.

Generally, we are supportive of the overall direction of Race to the Top. But we feel that its focus on teacher effectiveness is too narrowly about measuring individual teacher impact at the exclusion of supporting all educators to strengthen their teaching and leadership skills and attending to teaching and learning conditions within schools that impact student success.

Here is a brief summary of our recommendations:

Improving Teacher Effectiveness and Achieving Equity in Teacher Distribution
• The RttT guidelines should include a definition of teacher effectiveness that acknowledges and
supports the development of teacher and principal practice, especially during the early years.
New teachers and principals, who disproportionately work in struggling schools, need strong
mentoring and support to become effective.

• The RttT guidelines should define ‘effective principal’ more expansively, drawing upon
additional measures of student success and data on teaching and learning conditions to fully
reflect the impact of teachers, school leaders, and school environment on student learning.

• The RttT guidelines should require states to address school leadership development and teaching and learning conditions in their strategies to improve teacher effectiveness and the equitable distribution of quality teachers.

Improving Collection and Use of Data
• RttT guidelines should specifically include teaching and learning conditions data gathered from
practitioners to help schools, districts and states better understand supports and barriers to
teacher effectiveness and equitable teacher distribution, and to incorporate this information into
their longitudinal P-20 data systems.

And here is some selected language that provides insight into our thinking around teacher effectiveness and teacher development:

Teacher effectiveness in the proposed RttT guidelines focuses exclusively on value-added student assessments. While value-added student achievement data can be used to reward and recognize certain achievements by educators, it should not be the sole method by which teachers are evaluated, observed, rewarded, and deemed “effective.” Firing the least effective teachers and rewarding the most effective alone is short-sighted and ignores the vast majority of teachers in the middle who can achieve greater success if given access to high-quality induction and professional development, strong and supportive school administrators, and opportunities for collaboration and leadership. Great teachers are made – not born. Teachers need professional support and opportunities to develop their practice, including focused induction during their initial years in the profession. It is important to measure teacher impact on student learning, but measuring impact without providing the means to help educators strengthen their practice will ultimately fail our schools.

If RttT is to be an effective reform strategy, it needs to recognize teacher development as a primary means to maximize classroom effectiveness. RttT should require states not merely to identify the best teachers, but see that their successes form the building blocks of a better understanding of effective teaching practice that can be replicated in classrooms across America.

And on teaching and learning conditions:

In order for school leaders to attract and retain quality teachers, research shows the need for school leaders to make decisions based on data that incorporate the perspective of classroom teachers. Teacher survey data can provide insight into the school culture, how decisions are made, and the use of instructional and planning time for teachers. Such contextual data may explain differences in teacher effectiveness between schools and districts. NTC has worked with over 300,000 educators in 10 states, and collected teaching and learning conditions data from over 8,000 schools to utilize in school improvement plans. In North Carolina, the State Board of Education now requires schools to utilize the data from the biennial working conditions survey to inform annual improvement plans and strategies.

Quality teachers will seek out and stay with strong supportive school leaders; therefore, using RttT funds for salary bonuses in hard-to-staff schools would not be the most effective approach. RttT should encourage states to show how they are using data from teachers, along with student achievement and other relevant data, to develop policies for these schools, strengthen school leadership, and ensure that they are settings where the most effective teachers want to work and can succeed.

The RttT public comment period closes today and a spate of organizations have submitted comments just under the wire. They range from narrow to broad, supportive to critical, and offer everything from research-based suggested line edits to what basically look like press releases buttering up Secretary Duncan.

Visit here to review all of the public comments submitted.

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RttT: The Odds

The New Teacher Project's (NTP) odds sheet on states' chances for securing Race to the Top funding is a helpful guide on where states stand. It is relatively on target given available information, and shows that states like California, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin may be ineligible for RttT grants given existing statutory restrictions on what information can inform teacher evaluations or other factors.

Beyond that, I think the 'highly competitive,' 'competitive,' and 'somewhat competitive' gradations used by the NTP report are mostly guesswork. Until the U.S. Department of Education (ED) makes clear how it is going to balance the two primary selection criteria -- Reform Conditions and Reform Plan -- much of this is unquantifiable. The nine Reform Conditions articulated in the ED's draft selection criteria are: academic standards, high-quality assessments, statewide longitudinal data system, alternate routes to teaching, interventions in low-performing schools, charter school expansion, demonstrating significant academic progress, making education funding a priority, and enlisting statewide support and commitment. States that may not be as strong in having created these conditions for education reform can only hope that the ED weighs proposed Reform Plan strategies equally to or more heavily than the Reform Conditions criteria. If ED chooses to steer the money primarily to states that have a proven track record of education policy reform and the results to back it up, then middling and poorly prepared states cannot hope that a stellar application will bail them out from having been reform laggards in recent years.

Until we know more information about the selection process, it is just too easy to pick apart a 5-scale scoring rubric such as that employed by TNTP. As an example, I might quibble with the likes of Minnesota, Missouri and New Jersey being ranked above Massachusetts. Will Massachusetts get credit for its stellar NAEP results? Or will the fact that Minnesota is more charter school friendly trump such outcome measures, despite the fact that charters in the Gopher State don't appear to achieve particularly good results? Those are the types of decisions that the ED will have to make in establishing scoring criteria and the application reviewers will have to make in scoring state applications.

Another wild card in all of this is the funding that 15 states (Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas) are receiving from the Gates Foundation to hire consultants to help them write their RttT applications. Will that support from Gates be akin to getting dealt pocket aces? As Dana Goldstein notes in her American Prospect blog post: "During a time of state budget cuts and layoffs, the Gates funds could mean the difference between a barely completed application [which could take "up to 642 hours"] and one given enough attention to win the competition."

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Is California's "Firewall" Penetrable?

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell countered criticism by Education Secretary Arne Duncan about a state law restricting the use of student assessment data in teacher evaluations. As reported in today's Los Angeles Times, O'Connell highlighted Long Beach Unified as a school district that does exactly that.

California's top education official sought Tuesday to counter federal criticism of the state's reluctance to use student test scores to evaluate teachers, paying a visit to Long Beach to highlight one of the few California school districts to make extensive use of such data.

The Long Beach Unified School District's use of student scores to assess the effectiveness of programs, instructional strategies and teachers is a rarity in California, and state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell called it a model for other California school districts during a hastily arranged round-table discussion.

At issue is a 2006 California law that prohibits use of student data to evaluate teachers at the state level. O'Connell said Obama and Duncan misunderstand the law, which does not bar local districts from using the information.

O'Connell also released a statement on this issue last week.

Long Beach Unified is a 2009 finalist for the Broad Prize and was recently profiled by TIME magazine as one of the top urban school systems in the nation.

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Where's That Dutch Kid?

Gotham Schools reports that some in New York State don't believe that the state's law that restricts student assessment data from being used in teacher tenure decisions will hamper the state from securing Race To The Top funding. Is this just wishful thinking or is this whole issue being oversimplified by proposed federal RTTT regulations?

New York State’s tenure law, passed last year under pressure from teachers unions, says student test score data can’t be the sole determinant of whether a teacher gets tenure. But three top officials — teachers union president Randi Weingarten, Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and incoming State Education Commissioner David Steiner — are arguing that the law will not disqualify New York from the fund.

“It is our firm belief that the language of Race to the Top funding does not preclude New York,” Steiner said today. “New York has a law on the books that relates strictly to tenure.”

Weingarten noted that a second section of the same law explicitly requires teachers’ annual evaluations, which take place even after they receive tenure, to be based in part on how they use test score data to improve their instruction.

“The way in which teachers use data in their classroom instruction is specifically included in the definition of what confers tenure onto a classroom teacher,” she said. ”How teachers use data is one of the criteria for getting tenure. Just not the data in and of itself.”

NY UPDATE: Charlie Barone says BS.

Likewise, in Wisconsin -- another state singled out by Education Secretary Arne Duncan for having a "ridiculous" law that restricts the use of student assessment data in teacher evaluations -- the Governor's office says that the law only applies to data from the state assessment. Assumedly, other assessment data could be used instead, although that creates costs and logistical hurdles for school districts, some very small. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

According to Chapter 118.30(2)(c) of the Wisconsin State Statutes, "the results of examinations to pupils enrolled in public schools, including charter schools, may not be used to evaluate teacher performance, to discharge, suspend or formally discipline a teacher, or as the reason for the nonrenewal of a teacher's contract."

By Friday afternoon, state Sen. Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) and Rep. Brett Davis (R-Oregon) had announced plans to introduce legislation that would change Chapter 118.30(2)(c) to eliminate the prohibition on using state testing in teacher evaluations.

But according to Gov. Jim Doyle's office, the Wisconsin statute is not at odds with the state's Race to the Top eligibility.

"Our reading of the current law is that it only prohibits the use of the WKCE (Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination) in evaluating teachers, and that other student assessments may be used to evaluate teachers," said Lee Sensenbrenner, a spokesman for Doyle's office.

Sensenbrenner said the governor will be putting together a comprehensive application for the Race to the Top competition that puts the state in a position to succeed.

As part of that, he said, the state would "review the existing law to see if any changes need to be made to strengthen our competitive position."

UPDATE: On Teacher Beat, Stephen Sawchuk has a pithy update on this issue -- and the pleadings of California, New York and Wisconsin about how this really isn't a problem. Really, it isn't!

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Obama's Firewall

Michele McNeil at Education Week's Politics K-12 blog reports that President Obama himself approved the Race To The Top provision that restricts these competitive grants for going to states that restrict the use of student achievement data in teacher evaluations. Short of statutory or regulatory changes made by these 3 states, should we be saying au revoir to the Golden, Empire and Badger states?

Only two things can render a state ineligible for Race to the Top grants.

And only one of them is a biggie: the student-teacher data firewall issue.

This effectively means New York, California, and Wisconsin, at the very least, are ineligible for Race to the Top—or will at least have some explaining to do. They have laws on the book that essentially bar the use of student-achievement data in some teacher-evaluation decisions.

Erin Richards at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel picks up the story, too.

Background here and here.

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Student Learning and Teacher Performance

Corrected

President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan have drawn a clear line in the sand with regard to evaluating teacher performance: States with laws that restrict the use of student achievement data in employment evaluations -- including California, New York and Wisconsin -- may be rendered all-but-ineligible for competitive grants, such as Race To The Top funding, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Read more in John Dillon's New York Times story ("Administration Takes Aim At State Laws on Teachers").

In a speech last month, Secretary Duncan named Wisconsin as a state with such restrictions in place. Wisconsin law -- 121.02(1)(q) -- requires schools boards to "evaluate, in writing, the performance of all certified school personnel at the end of their first year and at least every 3rd year thereafter." Further, 118.30 2(b)4.(c) restricts the results of student assessments from being "used to evaluate teacher performance, to discharge, suspend or formally discipline a teacher or as the reason for the nonrenewal of a teacher's contract." [Kudos to Chris Thorn at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research for rooting out the offending statute in question! I won't quit my day job.]

Between this restrictive law and the state's distinction as having the largest black-white achievement gap in reading in the nation, it seems that the state's chances in the Race To The Top competition are very poor. In a recent post, I gave Wisconsin 30-1 odds. Let's make it 50-1.

The U.S. Department of Education today has released draft rules that will govern the competition for and allocation of competitive ARRA dollars. This information is available at www.ed.gov/recovery. (For great early analysis, go to Teacher Beat.)

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Sanford is Stimulated

Ed Week's Politics K-12 blog reports that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford will be forced to apply for federal stimulus funding, despite his opposition.

South Carolina can now get a boatload of federal aid, some $700 million, largely designated for education under the economic-stimulus law. The state Supreme Court today ruled unanimously that Republican Gov. Mark Sanford must apply for the money.

The court found that the state’s General Assembly had authority in passing its state budget plan, which assumed use of money from the state fiscal-stabilization fund, to order the governor to formally seek the money. The governor had contended that he had the sole authority to request the federal aid. He said earlier this month that he would not appeal the ruling.

I guess he won't be running as the "effectiveness" candidate should he decide to seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

For background, see here, here and here.

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From "The Looking A Gift Horse In The Mouth" Department

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is still at it (The State: "Sanford's vetoes ignite budget battle"), rejecting federal stimulus dollars for his state-in-need. He's conjured up a convoulted argument to fuel his potential presidential campaign against President Obama in 2012. He says that the federal dollars should be used to pay down South Carolina's debt rather than be used to sure up budget shortfalls in areas like education or to create economic stimulus--the whole intent of the stimulus legislation.

Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed nearly all of the state’s $5.7 billion spending plan Tuesday, a move lawmakers are expected to override today in the latest tussle over $350 million in disputed federal stimulus money.

Sanford has argued the state should pay off an equivalent amount of debt or he will not request the money. Lawmakers included rules in the budget that would require Sanford to request the money within five days of the budget becoming law.

Of course, Sanford is positioning himself as a "fiscal conservative" against Obama, assumedly a "tax-and-spend" Democrat. It appears as though bipartisan majorities in both houses of the Republican-controlled South Carolina legislature are set to reject the Guv'nah once and for all. Now that's a horse of a different color--one that's blue AND red all over.

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Stimulus Watch: Front-Loading and Favoritism

Michael Griffith, senior finance analyst at the Education Commission of the States, has authored a fascinating policy brief detailing where states are beginning to invest the State Fiscal Stabilization Funding portion of the federal stimulus money. As of May 8th, the U.S. Department of Education has approved preliminary applications from governors of nine states (CA, IL, ME, MN, MS, OR, SD, UT, WI).

The ECS brief notes that the applications provide assurance that the state will: (1) fund both its K-12 schools and institutions of higher education at or above FY 2005-06 levels, and (2) identify how much of the stabilization funds it will expend in FY 2008-09, FY 2009-10 and FY 2010-11.

Here are the results:

• FRONT-LOADING OF FUNDS - "States are allowed to use their Education Stabilization Funding starting this fiscal year (FY 2008-09) through fall 2011. The expectation was that states would spend some of their funds to finish out this fiscal year but would use the bulk of funds in FY 2009-10 and FY 2010-11. However, these first nine states have greatly front-loaded their spending. On average, the nine states are spending 55.0% of their Educational Stabilization Funds to complete FY 2008-09." The states of California, Illinois, Oregon and Utah will have spent down all of their stabilization funds and will have none remaining by FY 2010-11; on the other end of the spectrum, the state of Mississippi will reserve 52% of its funding for FY 2010-11.

• K-12 FAVORED OVER HIGHER ED - "Over the past three years states have spent an averaged 76.9% of education funding on K-12 programs and 23.1% on higher education. While the average expenditures from the nine states with approved applications hews close to traditional expenditures (80.1% on K-12 and 19.9% to Higher Ed), each of the nine states planned expenditures varies greatly." Wisconsin would spend all of its stabilization funding on K-12, while neighboring Minnesota will spend 38% of its funding on higher education.

The decision most states have made to front-load these funds is no doubt driven by fiscal crises, partially due to the recession but also by poor budgetary choices made by states over time. That K-12 garners most of these dollars reflects existing spending priorities wherein higher education takes a backseat -- perhaps because tuition is seen as an available revenue stream to make up for state stinginess.

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Stimulus: L.A. Edition

On Tuesday the Christian Science Monitor ran a good story ("Stimulus money puts teachers in layoff limbo") on the tension between using federal stimulus dollars to ward off layoffs versus using the funds to push reform.

A look at several states and school districts sheds light on the tension between multiple goals for the stimulus money – saving jobs, reforming education, and avoiding becoming too dependent on a funding stream due to dry up in two years.

Undoubtedly, districts will use much of the formula-based funding to save teachers jobs as well they should. Hopefully, some will also use it to build infrastructure and systems that support student learning, teacher development, and data collection. Of course, there also is the $5 billion of discretionary funding that the U.S. Department of Education will allow states and districts to compete for -- those that have a proven track record of reform and results who want to accomplish even more.

But it was curious to read in the Monitor story that the Los Angeles Unified School District was planning to submit an application for the $650 million What Works and Innovation Fund portion of the competitive stimulus funding.

With a projected shortfall of $1.4 billion over the next two years, largely because of state cuts, the L.A. schools cannot avoid increasing class sizes and cutting some teachers, district leaders say. Without the stimulus, "it would have been twice as bad," says school board president Mónica García. More than 1,000 jobs are being cut from the administrative side, she notes.

The board plans to seek additional stimulus dollars that the US Department of Education will be handing out on a competitive basis to districts that pursue key reforms. "We didn't want to just preserve the status quo ... and we heard Washington say loud and clear ... 'We're going to be holding you accountable for results,' " Ms. García says.

Much as I raised questions about Milwaukee's chances for such funding ("Stimulus: Milwaukee's Odds") in a recent post, I am raising a same question about LA Unified's. In the stimulus law -- the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-- an explicit criterion for school districts to apply for such funding is having met adequate yearly progress objectives under No Child Left Behind for at least two years in a row. LA Unified has not. So the only way for it to win competitive stimulus funding would be in partnership with a nonprofit or through a California state application for Race To The Top funding.

Someone tell me if I'm wrong here, but based on very clear statutory language and from initial explanation provided by the U.S. Department of Education (further guidance is forthcoming), it seems that districts like Los Angeles and Milwaukee will be outside the tent with the vast majority of urban school districts ineligible to apply directly for competitive stimulus dollars. Those districts will however leverage historic federal funding increases through formula-based stimulus funding -- although that won't always be enough to offset state cuts as apparently is the case in L.A.

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Stimulus: Milwaukee's Odds

Recent stories suggest that policymakers and education leaders are beginning to bank on competitive funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that in actuality will only flow to reform-minded, results-oriented states and districts. I'm talking about the competitive $4.35 billion Race To The Top grants (for states) and the $650 million What Works and Innovation Fund (for school districts and nonprofits).

With regard to the What Works and Innovation Fund (WWIF), some things are clear. In order for a school district to be eligible to apply, they must meet four specific criteria, one of which is having met or exceeded the state's Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) objectives for student achievement for at least two years.

This criterion alone will render many school districts ineligible for this competitive funding. And that's OK, says the U.S. Department of Education. This WWIF is intended to take effective innovations to scale, not to provide districts in-need with additional resources. That's what the major injection of Title I funding in ARRA was intended for.

So it was curious to see this press release cross my desk ("Governor Doyle, Mayor Barrett Announce Effort to Reform MPS"). The joint release from Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett unveils a 5-point plan "to drive innovation, school improvement and fiscal responsibility" in Milwaukee Public Schools. Plank number one is this:

Compete for American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) funding - Working together with educators, parents, and the community, Governor Doyle and Mayor Barrett will lead Milwaukee-based efforts to compete for federal incentive grant funding available through the ARRA.

These highly competitive federal grants are intended to reward states and districts that are making major reforms to successfully reduce achievement gaps and improve student learning. There are a few clarifications needed here. First, Milwaukee won't be eligible to compete directly for the WWIF because it is a district "in need of improvement" under the No Child Left Behind Act--in other words, it hasn't met AYP objectives at all (and this in a state that has tried to game the system by unrealistically projecting that nearly all achievement growth will occur in the out years). Second, Milwaukee could apply for the What Works and Innovation Fund in partnership with a nonprofit, assuming that nonprofit could demonstrate impact along those 4 objectives. Third, Milwaukee could benefit from a successful Wisconsin state application to the Race To The Top fund. But looking at the chief criteria for that competitive fund--rigorous academic standards and high-quality assessments, pre-k to college data systems, making improvements in teacher effectiveness and the equitable distribution of teachers, and intensive support to low-performing schools--suggests that Wisconsin, at best, is a 30-to-1 shot. Given its track record (or lack thereof) on some of these education policy elements in recent years, it's going to have a difficult time competing with leading states. And the Education Department has been very clear that these dollars will flow to a select number of states. My money is on Wisconsin not being one of them. I'm an optimist--but I'm not that optimistic.

If I have time, perhaps I'll explore some of these policy issues in greater depth and why Wisconsin's recent failures to lead on reform will likely cost it these additional resources.

One thing is clear: State policymakers and district leaders should do their homework--and consider the odds--before counting on these competitive monies to fuel education reform. The check may well not be in the mail.

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Bring Out Your Dead

"Bring out your dead," shouts the dead collector in Monty Python & The Holy Grail.

Swift & Change Able tossed state education reform onto the cart in its post yesterday ("ARRA Stabilization $: Education Reform Is Dead, Long Live Education Reform"). Well, maybe reform is not completely dead, but it looks like it certainly may be with respect to the state stabilization funding in the federal stimulus legislation (otherwise known as ARRA, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act).

As it turns out, there are some fundamental flaws either in the stimulus bill itself, or in the guidance issued yesterday by the Department of Education, that render it virtually useless as a vehicle for statewide education reform.

This may have merits in terms of providing a revenue stream for states and districts to backfill budgets and pay off debt. Things are tough out there, and this dynamic is perfectly understandable. But in terms of driving change in the 4 areas that Congress specified - standards and assessments, teacher effectiveness and the equitable distribution of teachers, data systems, and turning around underperforming schools - there no longer is any there there.

The stakes for the Secretary’s $5 billion "Race to the Top" fund have been raised substantially. In fact, it is now the only education reform game in town.

Ed reform's last, best hope is ARRA's $5 billion pot of incentive funding--the $4.35 billion "Race To The Top" fund for which states are eligible to apply and the $650 million What Works and Innovation Fund for which LEAs and partnerships led by nonprofit organizations are eligible.

I generally agree with this perspective. Back in late January ("Overstated"), I chided politicians and media outlets alike who were either hailing or warning of a new era of federal influence in education based on this infusion of new resources.

Listen, short of the inclusion of some major new education policy in this stimulus bill (which won't happen) - greater accountability for spending, such as Title I and Title II dollars, for example - how is this piece of legislation going to "profoundly change" the federal role in education? Answer: Apart from coughing up some new federal resources at a time of need, it's not. It won't fundamentally change the business of teaching and learning without further legislative and policy changes. We still await action on ESEA reauthorization - the next best hope for positive changes and needed reforms to current federal law.

While I'm not backing away from that basic position, I am buoyed by what Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said to date about using the twin incentive funds to truly reward results and innovation, and to build upon it. If that's how it plays out and the standards for receiving these monies remain high, ARRA truly could advance state and local education reform.

"I'm not dead." We'll just have to wait and see won't we?

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Duncan To Sanford: "Stuff It"

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan vowed to find a way (as reported in USA Today) to get education-related stimulus dollars to South Carolina despite Governor Mark Sanford's perilous, politicized stance against accepting it.

"Let me be clear: We are going to take care of children in South Carolina," Duncan said Thursday in a Newsmaker session with USA TODAY.

The Obama administration last week rejected Sanford's bid to funnel $700 million in education-related federal stimulus funding to reducing South Carolina's debt. He later said he wouldn't apply for the $700 million.

Accepting the education money would "put our state even further into an unconscionable level of debt," Sanford said in a statement. The governor believes that failure to pay down the construction debt would worsen the state's overall debt load.

Sanford is one of a small group of Republican governors — Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and Alaska's Sarah Palin are others — who may reject or consider saying no to a portion of the stimulus money.

It seems to me that South Carolina's pre-existing debt is a creation of that state's policies and not the fault of a federal stimulus law just passed last month. In an Education Week story on this same topic, Sanford's spokesperson was quoted as saying that "the biggest problem remains borrowing money that future generations will have to repay." Listen, the federal government's been borrowing money for years. If this is truly a principled stance against borrowed federal monies -- and not politics as usual (a thumb in the eye of a Democratic president or testing the waters for a presidential run) -- then the Governor should reject all federal monies that could be said to be borrowed. For example, reject all federal highway money and South Carolina can go back to the days of horse and buggies.

Ain't gonna happen because there's no principle here, just politics.

BACKGROUND: "Dumb And Dumber"

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UPDATE: The New York Times weighs in ("Courting Disaster in South Carolina") on Sanford's stance in a Monday editorial.

Now that Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina has polished his credentials with the Republican right by recklessly rejecting $700 million in federal education stimulus money, we keep hoping he will change his mind and put the needs of his recession-ravaged state ahead of his political ambitions.

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Dumb and Dumber

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's decision on the stimulus dollars is dumb.

The United States faces a Zimbabwe-style economic collapse if it keeps "spending a bunch of money we don't have," South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Wednesday.

But with South Carolina's unemployment rate now the second-highest in the country, state lawmakers will attempt to override Sanford and take the $700 million if he turns it down, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said.

"They will use the total economic stimulus to stimulate the economy, jump-start it, so we can get out of the ditch we are in as a state and as a nation," Bauer, a fellow Republican, said in a written statement Wednesday.

But, as the parent of a two-year-old, this incident at an Arkansas day care facility is even dumber and completely inexcusable.

Ten children at a day care center drank windshield wiper fluid after a staffer served it from a container mistaken for Kool-Aid and placed in a refrigerator, authorities said Friday. The day care owner surrendered her state license Friday.

Doctors estimate the children, ages 2 to 7, drank about an ounce of the blue fluid late Thursday afternoon before realizing it tasted wrong, said Laura James, a pediatric pharmacologist and toxicologist at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock.

Only one child remained hospitalized Friday morning, after blood samples showed "measurable levels" of methanol, a highly toxic alcohol that can induce comas and cause blindness, officials said. The day care also provided the fluid for testing.

I hope the child hospitalized suffers no long-term consequences as a result of this idiocy.

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UPDATE: Thankfully, all of the children appear to be OK.

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Measurement Is Not Destiny

Stephen Sawchuk has written an excellent cover story ("Stimulus Bill Spurs Focus on Teachers") in this week's edition of Education Week. It discusses the federal stimulus legislation which directs states to abide by the equitable teacher distribution provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act -- as well as to improve teacher effectiveness -- in exchange for state stabilization funds and the opportunity to apply for competitive grants as part of Secretary Duncan's "Race To The Top Fund."

With regard to teacher effectiveness, there's just one little problem. There's no definition in federal law -- let alone in state laws -- about what that actually means. From Education Week:

Several states, and some districts, now endorse performance-based teacher evaluations that define good teaching, determine which teachers exhibit such practices, and identify those who fall short for assistance. Others are reorienting professional development toward sustained school-based approaches that researchers say are more likely to change teacher behavior and improve student achievement than “one shot” workshops.

Some efforts to improve teacher effectiveness have proved politically challenging. The federal Teacher Incentive Fund, a performance-pay program, has promoted interest in using test scores to estimate teacher effectiveness. That approach has generally not been favored by teachers’ unions. The tif program received an additional $200 million in the stimulus.

Additionally, a limited number of states have the ability to match teacher records to student data, and even those with the technical capacity have not always used their data to estimate teacher effectiveness. The unions fear such links could ultimately be used to establish punitive policies, and they have successfully lobbied legislators to curb the use of “teacher effect” data in some states. ("Growth Data for Teachers Under Review," Oct. 12, 2008.)

But the possibilities of “value added” are enticing to policymakers. Officials in Tennessee, the lone state that has incorporated teacher-effect data into personnel decisions, are awaiting new data that will reveal whether efforts to attract effective teachers to the most challenged schools have improved results, said Julie McCargar, the state director of federal programs.

This is a huge issue – and it will be interesting to see if the U.S. Department of Education focuses its regulatory definition and its expectations of states – like so many others – simply on measuring and identifying and perhaps rewarding effective teachers. The logical and more purposeful next step, of course, is to look at what behaviors, characteristics, or knowledge make certain educators more effective and then determine how to scale up approaches to initial training or on-going professional development programs to help make the vast majority of teacher candidates, beginning teachers and veteran teachers better. I have no insider knowledge about the Department's thinking around all this, but I’m always astonished at the wealth of policymakers, policy organizations, and foundations that never seem to get past square one on this topic.

Measurement is not destiny.

If all we do is use value-added metrics to determine who the best teachers are and pay them more money for being better, we will be sacrificing the quality of public education for a short-sighted reform. While more money might keep some effective educators from leaving a particular school or district, or from leaving the profession entirely, it won't do anything to make existing and future teachers a whit better.

The teacher effectiveness conversation must be about more than value-added measurement and performance pay, although it can certainly include those elements. It can't be simply about rewarding the good and getting rid of the bad. Fundamentally, it must be about a concerted human capital strategy to use existing knowledge as well as future data and research to strengthen teacher preparation, induction and professional development to improve the skills and abilities of all teachers. Hopefully, the Department's focus on teacher effectiveness will impel such an effort.

We can do better -- by learning from the best teachers and finding ways to replicate their success. Now, that would be effective.

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President Obama Calls For Education Reform

Amen.

In comments about the stimulus plan at last night's press conference [see above link for transcript], President Barack Obama called for education funding accompanied by more reform. (Kudos to Politics K-12 blog for its post on this topic.)

"I think there are areas like education where some in my party have been too resistant to reform and have argued only money makes a difference. And there have been others on the Republican side or the conservative side who said, 'No matter how much money you spend, nothing makes a difference, so let's just blow up the public school systems.' And I think that both sides are going to have to acknowledge we're going to need more money for new science labs, to pay teachers more effectively, but we're also going to need more reform, which means that we've got to train teachers more effectively, bad teachers need to be fired after being given the opportunity to train effectively, that we should experiment with things like charter schools that are innovating in the classroom, that we should have high standards." -- President Barack Obama, February 9, 2009

President Obama is right on the mark. His pragmatism and practicality is quite refreshing. Not liberal, not conservative, not even moderate necessarily. How different from the holier-than-thou, we-like-to-get-our-names-in-the-press Senate "moderates" that slowed the bill down over ... what exactly? Cuts in funds for shovel-ready school construction projects (read: jobs) and help for shell-shocked state governments?

The President's comments get to the heart of my recent posts (here, here, and here) which argued that money alone would neither transform the federal role in education or lead to more reform. President Obama seems to agree. Fortunately, there'll be future opportunities to inject some needed policy reforms and retool some spending priorities in education. The stimulus package alone is not going get that done, but will inject some desperately needed funding into things like Title I, special education and Pell Grants and hopefully help to keep schools and students afloat ... once it gets out of the Capitol Hill sausage factory.

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