The U.S. Department of Education Should Be Abolished: Start by Ending the Federal Programs 'Race to the Top' and 'No Child Left Behind'

The Race to the Top grant program cements Washington's high-visibility role in education, a role that has been growing since 2001, when Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, requiring that states show steady increases in student proficiency. Unlike that earlier piece of legislation, Race to the Top is a voluntary program created entirely by the Obama administration and funded by the stimulus package. Rather than mandating that states make changes, as No Child Left Behind did, it offers incentives designed to be too big to turn down.

Race to the Top promotes an academic achievement rat race in which students near the top of the educational food chain strive maniacally to win (or at least finish). The emphasis on testing by former President Bush's No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) and continued with President Obama's Race to the Top initiative (RTTT) has only exacerbated the problem better characterized by the title of the powerful new documentary by Vicki Abeles, Race to Nowhere.

The Obama's administration mistake was to continue Bush's initial mistake of focusing on testing; instead of being a tool for education reform, testing has morphed into the end-all, be-all of said reform. Perhaps the saddest aspect of NCLB is that it HASN'T WORKED! Over the decade in which NCLB has been in place, there have been few appreciable or lasting gains in test scores for which NCLB can take credit. What it has overwhelmingly succeeded at is driving schools and states to game the system (i.e., lower standards, cherry pick data) to keep the federal-funding spigot flowing.

"It's the race to the trough," said Grover Whitehurst, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "They need money and the only way to get it is to compete for federal funds and the only way to do that is to dance to Washington's tune." Faced with continuing grim prospects, dozens of states signed off on the Obama administration's pet initiatives for K-12 education in the hopes of landing some Race to the Top money. The federal government is giving Race to the Top education grants to school districts more notable for the voting blocs they represent than the scores that they post.

Our federal government has allowed improving test scores to supersede actually educating our children. The Department of Education mandates that states must fulfill "four assurances" to receive federal stimulus money: "progress in raising standards, in recruiting and retaining effective teachers, in tracking students' and teachers' performance, and in turning around failing schools."

Billions upon billions of dollars have been spent over many decades in the name of education reform with nothing appreciable to show for it. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has a very big carrot, about seventy billion dollars, with which to motivate states, schools, educators, parents, and students to reform our public-education system. But incentive without the means to harness that motivation is akin to wanting to drive somewhere, but not having a map or even a destination. And RTTT offers neither.

Arne Duncan became Secretary of Education because of his fealty to the corporate education reform agenda that he nurtured and learned under in Chicago. When it was time for Arne, as Secretary, to announce the leader for the $4.35 billion bribery fund known as Race to the Top, the Oligarchs chose Joanne Weiss, COO and Partner of the New Schools Venture Fund--a vast web of corporate and corporate foundation cash strategically invested in the cause of privatizing education, all the while collecting huge tax credits for all that generosity by these vulture philanthropists. Just continue to follow the money.

When tiny Delaware submitted its RTTT grant application, a Boston non-profit corporation, Mass Insight, was instrumental in helping Delaware to develop its school turnaround plans. Mass Insight's favorite turnaround model is the same one that Arne and Billionaire Boys' Club prefer: The consequences for failing to reform test scores will have more bite. The state is going to create a team to oversee these schools, with leadership coming from Mass Insight Education & Research Institute, a Boston group that favors replacing the staff and leadership when overhauling a failing school. Mass Insight, which receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among other corporations and educational reform partnerships, supports the type of reform model that led to the recent firing of the principal and teachers at Rhode Island's Central Falls High School. Now where do the geniuses at Mass Insight get their piles of non-profit to help states develop plans that the judges really like? Well, they happen to get their sponsorship from the same people who wrote the Race Rules and whose COO is, indeed, the Race Director:

Leadership Sponsors
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Barr Foundation
The Boston Foundation
National Math & Science Initiative
Exxon Mobil Corporation
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
Nellie Mae Education Foundation
NewSchools Venture Fund

This notion that test results are the essential goal of education reform has created an environment in which teachers must "teach to the test;" students aren't really educated so much as prepared to pass tests so schools and states can get federal funding. Race to Nowhere presents some compelling arguments against the emphasis on test scores that increased exponentially with the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (it should be called the Almost Every Child Left Behind Act, given its abysmal record in raising test scores or graduation rates, much less actually educating children). Students now focus on memorizing facts (and then forget them shortly after), find learning to be aversive rather than inspiring, and see no problem with cheating to get ahead (in the 1940s, 20% of students admitted to cheating in high school; today, well over 75% make the same admission). The child-development, tutoring, and testing industries are an almost $10 billion scam that feeds on the fears of parents that their children will be left behind. The low rankings currently held by our students compared to other countries on international achievement tests don't bode well for their or our future.

[Source]

Government Opens Competition for New School Grants

August 12, 2012

ABC News - Hoping to build on state-level reforms aimed at closing the education achievement gap, the Education Department opened its Race to the Top competition to school districts on Sunday, inviting the poorest districts across the country to vie for almost $400 million in grants.

Following four months of public comment on a draft proposal, the Education Department unveiled its final criteria for the district-level competition, which will award 15 to 25 grants to districts that have at least 2,000 students and 40 percent or more who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches — a key poverty indicator.

Grants will range from $5 million to $40 million, depending on the size of the district.

"We want to help schools become engines of innovation through personalized learning so that every child in America can receive the world-class public education they deserve," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.

The original Race to the Top competition, announced in 2009, set out to provide more than $4 billion in grants to states that undertook ambitious education reforms. Dozens of states changed laws, introduced new teacher evaluation programs and lifted caps on charter schools to qualify for a slice of the funds.

Congress approved about $550 million for Race to the Top this year, and the Education Department expects to use about $383 million of it for grants to districts that propose ambitious reforms to personalize learning, narrow the achievement gap and prepare students for college. The rest will go toward the department's early learning competition.

School districts in states that received money in previous years will still be eligible to apply. Districts can propose programs that affect all or just some of their schools, and can also band together to apply for grants. Proposals geared to specific grades or subject areas also will be considered.

To be eligible, districts must put in place evaluation systems to measure performance of teachers, principals and superintendents by the 2014-2015 school year. The Education Department also planned initially to require school board evaluations and personalized learning plans for students, but officials said they eliminated both requirements based on public objections.

It remains to be seen whether the district-level competition will be alluring enough to entice districts to enact sweeping reforms, said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

"It seems that the response from the districts has been somewhat anemic," Petrilli said. "Simply put, there's just much less money at stake than there was for the states."

School districts are expected to signal their intent to apply by the end of August, with applications due on Oct. 30. Districts will find out whether they've been selected for a grant by the end of the year.

Related:

• Financial Elite Set Their Sights on the Vast Wealth of the U.S. Public School System
  
• Powerseekers Set Their Sights on the Vast Wealth of the States' Public School Systems
  
• Power Elite Set Their Sights on the Vast Wealth of the States' Public School Systems
  
• The Corporate Takeover of Education
  
• Drive for Education Reform has Teachers Unions on the Defensive
  
• They Redistributed the Wealth of the Private Sector Middle Class to the Public Sector; the End Game is to Pit the People Against Each Other with Orchestrated Protests, Then Order Out of Chaos with the Solution being a New World Order with 'Social Equality for All'
  
• Tight Budgets Mean Squeeze in Classrooms
  
• Education Secretary Sees Many Teacher Layoffs

Power Elite Set Their Sights on the Vast Wealth of the States' Public School Systems

Over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat. The same pattern holds for higher education. When you need more achievement for less money, you have to change the way you spend. The single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching. To flip the curve, we have to identify great teachers. The United States spends $50 billion a year on automatic salary increases based on teacher seniority. After the first few years, seniority seems to have no effect on student achievement. Another standard feature of school budgets is a bump in pay for advanced degrees. Such raises have almost no impact on achievement, but every year they cost $15 billion that would help students more if spent in other ways. Perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets -- and one of the most unchallenged -- is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement. This belief has driven school budget increases for more than 50 years. U.S. schools have almost twice as many teachers per student as they did in 1960, yet achievement is roughly the same. One approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students. Part of the savings could then be used to give the top teachers a raise. (In a 2008 survey funded by the Gates Foundation, 83 percent of teachers said they would be happy to teach more students for more pay.) The rest of the savings could go toward improving teacher support and evaluation systems, to help more teachers become great. - Bill Gates, Bill Gates: How Teacher Development Could Revolutionize Our Schools, February 28, 2011

Board Votes to Send Layoff Notices to All 2,000 Providence Teachers

February 24, 2011

The Lookout - Providence, Rhode Island Mayor Angel Taveras is sending layoff warnings to all 1,926 of the city's teachers.

They won't all be dismissed, but state law requires the city to notify teachers by March 1 whether the district could lay them off before the start of the next school year. School officials say warning every teacher gives them the freedom to let go many of them later without having to single any of them out now.

Providence's school district is facing a $40 million budget shortfall next year.

"Are there going to be less teachers? Yes," Taveras told The Providence Journal. "Will there be less schools open next year? Yes. Do I know which teachers and which schools? No."

As you can imagine, the local teachers' union is not taking the news well.

"This is beyond insane," Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith told The Providence Journal's Linda Borg. "Let's create the most chaos and the highest level of anxiety in a district where teachers are already under unbelievable stress. Now I know how the United States State Department felt on Dec. 7, 1941."

Meanwhile, 106 teachers got pink slips in nearby Central Falls Public School District. Only 11 of those teachers will be fired due to poor performance, according to GoLocalProv.

Central Falls High School, one of the worst performing schools in the state, became a battleground of the education reform movement last year, when the superintendent threatened to fire its entire teaching staff after the union wouldn't agree to a longer school day, after-school tutoring, and a new evaluation system without much extra pay. Teachers argued that the area's poverty, not their lack of effort, was responsible for low test scores. Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded the decision to force the teachers to do more work or lose their jobs.

Providence isn't the only town downsizing its school system. In an unprecedented move, the city of Detroit is planning on closing half of its 142 schools by 2014 in an effort to close its budget deficit.

Mass layoffs of public workers have become more common as city and state tax revenues have plunged during the recession. The mayor of Fall River, Mass. fired nearly 150 city employees in 2009, after two big companies in the town, Quaker Fabric and A.J. Wright, laid off almost 3,000 people in 2007. And the tiny city of Maywood, Calif. laid off every one of its employees last year and instead moved to an outsourcing contract system to save money.

All Providence Teachers Receive Dismissal Notices

February 24, 2011

CNNMoney - The Providence Public School Department sent dismissal notices Tuesday to every one of its 1,926 teachers, warning them they could lose their jobs at the end of this school year.

Not all teachers in Rhode Island's capital city will be let go. But the warning was necessary because of the dire fiscal straits that both Providence and its school system are in.

The school district is facing a nearly $40 million shortfall for the coming academic year.

The city's financial condition is even worse. Providence, which faced a $57 million deficit a year ago, is preparing a budget that will contain major cuts to education, officials said. The city, which has been hit hard by the Great Recession, spends half its budget on schools.

Rhode Island law requires that teachers be notified about potential changes to their employment status by March 1. But because the extent of the funding cuts are still unknown, the school system sent warnings to every teacher to give itself "the maximum flexibility to consider every cost-saving option," Superintendent Tom Brady wrote in a letter to educators.

Mayor Angel Taveras, a product of Providence public schools who promised to improve them in his inaugural address last month, plans to submit his budget at the beginning of April. The new mayor should have a better handle on the city's fiscal condition once a task force he appointed to review Providence's finances issues its report within the next two weeks.

"We know there will be fewer teachers and fewer schools open," said Melissa Withers, Taveras' spokeswoman.

In the past, the school district has issued layoff notices to some teachers, but never dismissal notices and never to the entire staff. School officials opted to dismiss teachers this year so the district would not be bound by state law that requires recalls be based on seniority.

"It gives us more flexibility to recall teachers based on student need," said Christina O'Reilly, a spokeswoman for the district.

The teachers' union said it was "appalled" at the city's decision to "terminate all Providence public school teachers." The union will explore every option to make sure educators' rights are protected.

"This unprecedented action sacrifices the best interest of Providence students and teachers in the name of flexibility," said Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union. "This is a slap in the face to teachers who have supported the district in nationally recognized labor-management collaboration initiatives which have occurred in our city over the past two years."

The city and the union will soon start negotiations on the teachers' contracts, which expire June 30. City and school district officials stressed that Tuesday's move was not related to the contract expiring.

Duncan Holds Labor Summit Amid Increasing Teacher Tension

February 17, 2011

PBS News Hour - Even as Education Secretary Arne Duncan opened what he called an "historic" summit in Denver this week between union leaders and education administrators, relations between those two groups have perhaps never been more strained.

A host of Republican-sponsored bills in several states are trying to limit collective bargaining. And labor-management relations are tense in scores of other districts where tight state budgets are prompting calls for teacher layoffs and curtailed benefits.

It is in that environment that Duncan convened a two-day meeting of teachers, superintendents and school board members representing 150 districts from 40 states. In his opening remarks, he called for a new era in labor-management relations.

"I really want to push you hard on the importance of collaboration," he said. "Unions and administrators have been battling each other for decades and we have far too little to show for it. It hasn't been good for the adults and it certainly hasn't been good for children."

In order to participate in the conference, a district's superintendent and the head of the local teacher's union had to sign a pledge to work "collaboratively" to find ways to advance the hiring, retention, compensation, development and evaluation of a highly effective workforce.

That requirement kept several large school districts from attending, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. New York City teachers withdrew from their initial agreement to attend after Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Cathleen Black began talking about layoffs. Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers said:

"If we sign a pledge and before we even get to Denver they've broken their pledge, why am I going? It makes no sense."

Duncan acknowledged the process isn't easy.

"Collaboration is such a friendly-sounding work. But in practice, nothing is more demanding at the district level than collaborating on issues that take all of you far out of your comfort zone," he said.

Twelve "model" school districts were highlighted at the meeting and representatives spoke about the challenges and successes they've had. The model districts included:

• Douglas County, Co.,which has redesigned performance pay as part of teacher evaluation

• Helena, Mont., which has an innovative teacher mentoring program

• Hillsborogh County, Fla., which is in the midst of a 7-year initiative to have 90 percent of all students ready for college or a career upon graduation

Managers and union members from each district had to participate as a group in these sessions and were encouraged to eat dinner and socialize together in the evening.

"We wanted to have as many kumbaya moments as possible between people who don't often spend time like this together," said Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton.

As the summit concluded on Wednesday, Duncan said the real measure of success would be how the districts proceeded in the coming months as they faced budget cuts and other hurdles. His agency will establish a database to track the progress of all 150 participating school districts.

NewsHour education correspondent John Merrow has reported on the tensions between teachers' unions and education managers in his series tracking school reform in Washington, D.C. Here's a report from August, when then-D.C. schools chancellor Michell Rhee (who has since resigned her post) devised a way to put teachers to the test.

Obama's Education Chief Arne Duncan Flip-flops

February 16, 2011

New York Post - President Obama's education czar flip-flopped on the controversial "last in, first out" teacher layoff policy -- initially circulating a copy of a prepared speech that blasted the practice, only to later abandon the pledge in his address to union-member educators in Denver last night, The Post has learned.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan failed to even the use the word "seniority" when alluding to layoffs during an address on labor-management issues last night.

"My view is that we need to look hard at the impact of staffing rules and policies on students, especially in low-achieving schools," Duncan said in the speech he delivered last night.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan strayed from his originally prepared text while addressing union members in Denver yesterday.

"That means recruiting the best teachers and then making sure our state laws, labor contracts and personnel practices support these teachers and keep them in their schools," Duncan said.

But Duncan slammed LIFO in an earlier draft of his speech, which was obtained by The Post.

"My view is that we need to look hard at the impact of seniority rules on students, especially in low-achieving schools. The goal should always be to maintain the most effective work force, regardless of years of experience or salary levels," he said in the earlier version.

"Last-in, first-out policies can disproportionately remove great newer teachers who take on tough educational challenges," the earlier draft said.

In the earlier version, Duncan even noted that the ACLU blocked seniority-based layoffs in a court settlement in Los Angeles and pointed out that "Mayor Bloomberg has called for a change in state law in New York."

Those references were also dropped from the final speech.

A Duncan official insisted that the secretary didn't buckle last night to political pressure -- and didn't drop LIFO reform comments from the speech to placate union leaders.

Duncan's office instead downplayed his decision.

"This is what he decided to say right now. It's a tough issue," a spokesman said. "This is how he wanted to say it. This is the beginning of a conversation, not the end. He wanted to be positive. He felt this was a positive way to introduce [the issue]."

Duncan did propose offering higher pay to teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools or those who teach in hard-to-staff subjects such as math and science, initiatives that unions often oppose.

Advocates: Target Teacher-Quality Spending to Evaluations, Equal Access

February 23, 2011

Education Week - As a condition of receiving federal teacher-quality funding, districts should develop new evaluation systems—including consideration of student achievement information—by the 2016-17 school year, and eventually use such systems to make sure that low-income and minority students have equal access to teachers deemed effective, according to a newly released set of policy recommendations.

The recommendations, released jointly by the Washington-based Education Trust and Center for American Progress, suggest "a specific set of timelines, incentives, and sanctions" for states to meet those requirements.

The proposal is one of the first major ones by D.C.'s heavy-hitting advocacy groups to take on teacher-quality spending, specifically the Title II Improving Teacher Quality State Grants. Title II always takes a bit of a back seat to the comparatively larger Title I and IDEA funds, but at $3 billion, it's far and away the largest federal teacher-quality program out there.

As I reported a while back, every state and all but about 5 percent of districts get a Title II allocation, but there's not a lot to show that the cash actually does much on the ground. The federal Education Department conducts a use-of-funds survey every year, but most of the information generated from it is pretty general. (See the most recent one here.)

Under the recommendations, states receiving Title II funds would have to develop minimum state rules for new teacher-evaluation systems, including the use of student information, observations, and at least four ratings categories, by 2016-17.

In the interim, states would report other information, including the percentage of teachers in each school who: Had more than a year of experience; taught in-field at the secondary school level; and held certification.

As for sanctions, the recommendations propose that states would use the new evaluation tools to monitor, report, and intervene to correct patterns of inequitable access to effective teachers by poor and minority students and their peers, both within and between districts.

Under the proposal, a district that didn't narrow access gaps within four years would lose half of its Title II funds and required to make up the rest with a match; after five years, it would lose its Title II allocation altogether.

That's a lot more stringent than the current Title II accountability measures, which are linked to the highly qualified teacher designation and don't have many teeth.

Last time Capitol Hill officials released draft language for Title II, in 2007, they didn't go anywhere, largely because of fears about a proposed performance-pay program. Other groups complained that they were just too prescriptive and onerous. Will these recommendations influence a second go-around? Stay tuned.

Teach.gov: Arne Duncan’s Call to Arms

September 27, 2010

Mind/Shift - We got a glimpse into Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s vision for the American public education system Monday during his conversation with journalists at Education Nation.

Recruiting qualified educators, and supporting, elevating, and giving incentives to teachers are his top priorities.

Anticipating that 1 million baby-boom generation teachers will be retiring in the next few years, Duncan announced the launch of Teach.gov, a full-scale national campaign on the part of the federal government to recruit teachers.

“This is about a call to service… Our ability to attract and retain teachers will shape the future of education in the next 25 to 30 years,” he said to Brokaw. “If you want to have an impact, this is the civil rights issue of our generation. I’m very optimistic because we know what works. We are the answers: Great teachers, great principals, great schools will strengthen our economy and give children the chance to fulfill their potential. If young kids can help us to fight for social justice, it’ll last for generations to come.”

According to Duncan, the site lists 2,000 teaching job openings as of today, and the department will be going around the country to recruit freshmen, sophomores, and seniors from colleges and universities...

Flashback: Education Secretary Sees Many Teacher Layoffs

February 21, 2010

Reuters - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.

"I am very, very concerned about layoffs going into the next school year starting in September. Good superintendents are going to start sending out pink slips in March and April, like a month from now, as they start to plan for their budgets," said Arne Duncan, referring to the slips of paper included in some paychecks to notify a person of being fired.

As tax revenues in most states continue to plummet because of weak economies, states and cities are considering cutting education to keep their budgets balanced. Every state in the union except one, Vermont, is required to balance its budget.

The economic stimulus package pushed last year by the administration of President Barack Obama and approved by Congress saved at least 320,000 education jobs, Duncan told the governors.

The plan included the largest transfer of money from the U.S. government to states in the nation's history, according to the Pew Center on the States.

It created a stabilization fund of $48 billion that provided cash directly to states, mostly for schools. But those funds will likely run out before the end of the year.

Last week, Obama warned of the possibility of layoffs in state governments when the stimulus ends.

Duncan said the $1.5 billion "Race to the Top" grants included in the stimulus plan are on track to be distributed soon, with the finalists for the grants announced next week. Obama has proposed extending the program, as well as expanding it by $3 billion, to fund new education innovations, especially at semi-autonomous charter schools.

The administration will also send out school improvement grants to states next month totaling $3.5 billion, Duncan said.

Employment is one of the most pressing issues in the United States, where the unemployment rate stands at 9.7 percent. The secretary, formerly the chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools, said there was some hope for educators in jobs legislation passed by the House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate.

Duncan also said a bill known as the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act passed by the House would boost funding for colleges and universities.

In January, there were 8.03 million workers in local government education, down from 8.09 million a year before and 8.05 million in January 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Power Elite Set Their Sights on the Vast Wealth of the States' Public School Systems

On February 14, 2011, Obama sent to Congress his budget for 2012. In it he asks for a 38.5 percent increase in funding for education (total discretionary spending of $77.4 billion) even as he calls for a five-year freeze on domestic spending. Obama wants $900 million for a new round of funds for the Race to the Top initiative that the administration says has spurred critical school reforms. The competitive education grant program will be geared toward school districts, as opposed to awarding money to states as was done last year. - The Associated Press, Highlights of Obama's $3.73 Trillion Budget for 2012, February 14, 2011

Race to the Top of Education a Loss for All

Obama's administration has created a new game for states to play

March 4, 2010

Nolan Chart - One of the saddest things I have seen in recent memory was an announcement of the 16 'finalists' in the Obama Administration's 'Race to the Top' competition for federal education dollars. Our country has sunk to a new low in many ways the proponents of this scheme are not revealing.

This competition for your tax dollars is yet another way sovereignty is lost, the Constitution is usurped, and states fall in line while people cheer. Making it a 'competition' stirs our human tendency toward cheering for winners and lambasting losers while onlookers do not question why states are participating, how your tax dollars can be used to fund a game of chance, and why a scoring system based on a single administration's agenda decides who gets the money earmarked for the education of America's children.

How much money has each state invested in the game of chance? Who is profiting from the application process? Why are your kids’ educations being put at risk for the amusement of politicians finding new ways to pull state strings? When will constitutional sanity come back to the United States? Will you cheer if your state 'wins' the money?

Today my hopes for constitutional restoration are a little lower then they were yesterday. Tears literally fill my eyes as I read the news reports that proclaim this event as some wonderful innovation. The Washington Post reported the following quote;

"These states are an example for the country of what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. "Everyone that applied for Race to the Top is charting a path for education reform in America."

Reform? Example?

When we are made to believe it is the federal government who sets the rules and states pay to play their game the reform created is tyranny. It is an example of how far citizens have fallen in our personal responsibility over the education of our children. This is like some carnival rolling into town with amusement rides to distract those attending from the theft built into their carnies’ games. Education Sector is a think tank that advised many states on their application, was that advice free?

There are states that are critically short of resources for education yet teaching associations and states spend money, time and effort on this chance to 'win' some federal spoils. A better use of dollars and time would besetting about the foundation for returning schools to local and state control, ending federal waste and mismanagement.

This game is a scam; a scheme, a farce, and a fraud that will do nothing but further end freedom for our posterity. No states won today, all states lost as they will all lose again in April and June and as long as this carnival game is allowed to operate.

Race to the Top: Obama Follows in Pinochet’s Footsteps

September 7, 2010

Scott Creighton - Obama’s neoliberal “Race To The Top” program was nothing more than the federal government’s attempt to blackmail states into undermining their public education system for the benefit of the privitization of schools. Essentially it was the next step in the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” program which set up the standardized tests that they used to claim the education system was failing. The “public” education system that is.

Proof of this overall neoliberal agenda hit close to home today as I read an article about my local county and their massive increase in new charter school applications.

You see, last week it was announced by dear old Gov. Charlie Crist that Florida had been selected as one of the “winners” in the second round of the “Race to the Top” program. The way they “won” was to “turn around failing schools”, and by that I mean they closed schools down (mostly in poor neighborhoods) and spent the money setting up for-profit “charter” schools. They also attacked the teacher’s union, which Crist himself mentioned in his celebration speech, but he said ultimately that was “ok’ because he got the head of the teacher’s union to agree to it. Charlie was just beaming with pride when he made the announcement.

So in the race to privatize everything in the new world order of the great Neoliberal Party, my state, Florida, is well out in front. And to “reward” us the federal government, who has been deliberately underfunding public education for decades so that this day would surely come, will send us a check for around 700 million bucks.

Now, you think that money will be spent on the financially challenged public schools? Think again.

Twenty-five charter school applications — a record number — have been submitted for consideration to the Hillsborough County school district.

The applications include elementary, middle and high schools as well as combinations of grades for the publicly funded but independently operated educational facilities.

Jenna Hodgens, the district’s charter school supervisor, said the Hillsborough County School Board will vote on which to approve at its Dec. 7 meeting.

“Charter schools are a growing thing,” Hodgens said. “More and more management companies are getting involved, too.” Tampa Bay Online

Hillsborough County had 30 charter schools up until “Race to the Top” and now it looks like a business boom in the “public funded privately operated” land of milk and honey.

Let me give you a little example with pictures if I may.

I went to high school in Virginia. I went to this high school;

It’s a massive school, a public school, one of the best in the state. Theatre, music, art, athletics, plus a high standard of academic achievement. Current enrollment is about 1,600. Glass served the inner city as well as the wealthy families out on Rivermont Rd. and so forth. In one class room, an AP class or a remedial class, you would have a mixture of wealthy kids and poor kids, side by side. All depended on the kid… not their parent’s bank account. That’s what good public school systems did… they gave everyone a shot, no matter where they came from. They existed on the principle that each and every one of us had the right to the same opportunities, the same education. And that is why the neoliberals of America decided that public education had to be destroyed.

Ironically, E.C. Glass is named for Sen. Carter Glass of the Glass-Steagall Act or the Banking Act of 1933 which, among other things, prevented bank holding companies from owning other financial institutions and thus curbed the speculation of Wall Street which created the Great Depression.

It was the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall, orchestrated by Bill Clinton’s economic advisors (now running the Obama White House), which allowed for the sub-prime mortgage bubble and the speculation and the derivatives and the 2nd Great Depression we are now living in… which eventually provided the “economic disaster” that made all this neoliberal privitization possible. Small world, huh?

Now that was my high school, a public school… green lawns, good education, gave a poor kid like me the education to get into a pretty good college… then I blew it.

Let’s take a look at some of the “charter” schools” here in Hillsborough Co. Florida that Charlie Crist is so excited about setting up. This is the end result of Barack Obama’s ”Race to the Top”. Enjoy “progressives”

That’s Brooks-Debartolo, set up in 2007 as a “not-for-profit” 501 (3) (c) by a football player and the daughter of a famous football team owning family.

This is LLT Middle School. They tried to create a high school last year, but the “business” end of education just didn’t work out (not enough trailers?), so they told the students to hit the bricks.

This is Seminole Heights Charter High School, established in 2009. It shares its building with OP Ventures and some sleazy law firm. There is a bus stop nearby and a stop light so let’s HOPE the kids will get across the street safely.

While doing this research I have found that a vast majority of the charter schools down here in Hillsborough Co. don’t seem to like to post photos of their campuses online. Wonder why that is, huh?

A couple local charter schools here are run by the Leona Group, L.L.C. (it’s so comforting to know that your kids are being “educated” by a Limited Liability Corporation, isn’t it?). They currently have for-profit schools set up in 5 states but only 2 in the state of Florida at this time. However, in and around Detroit, they have 13 charter schools and 20 in the state of Michigan. They have 22 in Arizona. Apparently the Leona Group, LLC is quickly becoming the Wal-Mart of education in America.

Just for the record, let’s be clear about where the idea for charter schools came from…

“In the 1980s, the dictatorial government of Augusto Pinochet promoted neoliberal reforms in the country, and adopted a competitive voucher system in education. These vouchers could be used in public schools or private subsidized schools (which can be run for profit). After this reform, the number of private subsidized schools, many of them secular, grew from 18.5% of schools in 1980 to 32.7% of schools in 2001.” Wiki

That’s right. After the CIA/Kissinger backed coup that took the elected president out of power on Sept. 11, 1973, the dictator and neoliberal international criminal, Augusto Pinochet created one of the first if not the first “charter” school systems under the direction of the Milton Friedman disciples, the Chicago Boys, as part of their neoliberal “Brick” they dropped on the people of Chile. This is the heritage that Barack “CHANGE” Obama is following with his Race to the Top program.

Just thought you would like to know.

Federal 'Race to the Top' Fraud (Race to the Trough - One Giant Scam Top to Bottom)

April 21, 2010

The Cucking Stool - While Arne Duncan, Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich tour the talk shows and the country pushing president Obama's education initiative Race To The Top — which focuses on creating more failed charter schools and inferior teacher training - the liberal Economic Policy Institute did an in-depth analysis of the applications to the US Department of Education and the awarding of $600 million in the first round of funding (which went to Delaware and Tennessee).

Some states are so traumatized by their non-selection that they are desperately trying to find out what went wrong — and going so far — as Tim Pawlenty is doing in Minnesota — of seeking to change state law to have a better chance of winning funding in the second round of grants, due in June. But what would that change look like?

According to EPI the change that would be needed is unknown, because the US Department of Education didn't really follow ANY criteria in the awarding of the first round grants — and that, in effect, the winning states were chosen arbitrarily:

The 500-point system has six major categories, seven general categories, and various subcategories. By assigning numbers to each one, “the Department implies it has a testable theory or empirical data to back up its quantitative method.”

But it doesn’t have either, and, therefore, assigned the numbers subjectively.

“Further examination suggests that the selection of Delaware and Tennessee was subjective and arbitrary, more a matter of bias or chance than a result of these states’ superior compliance with reform policies,” it said.

And, it said: “The necessary subjective judgments required both for category selection and weight assignment makes a fair competition practically impossible, even if the competition is undertaken with great care.”

We might have guessed that, given the people pushing the policy — but now we know for sure. How many ways does Barack Obama have to prove that he wants to destroy the movement he rode in on?

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that, according to MPR, Minnesota's application for Race funds was outsourced to McKinsey and Company, and that the state only paid $100,000 of the $500,000 fee, the rest coming from the Gates, Bush and Minneapolis Foundations. Ironically the state's portion was paid out of federal stimulus funds.

'Race to the Top's' Blackmail While California Schools Suffer

March 30, 2010

Calitics - Calitics alum David Dayen takes a look at the recent announcement that Delaware and Tennessee have won a chunk of the "Race To The Top" funds awarded by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and reaches a conclusion I wholly endorse:

I hope we can be honest about what this actually represents: blackmail. It forces states to change their education laws to fit particular notions about how to manage public education in America. And it does so at a time of crippling state budgets, when the Race to the Top funds mean the difference between thousands of teachers laid off or kept on the job, between class sizes expanding or shrinking. Basically, Arne Duncan and the White House are leveraging crisis to make preferred changes in education policy....

But the metrics for winning these stimulus funds comes down to "what Arne Duncan likes about education policy."...What we do know is that only one side of this debate is withholding funding until their preferred policy prescriptions are enacted. And they're doing it at a time when the biggest obstacle to education in America in the near-term can be measured in dollars and cents. Giant budget shortfalls in the states mean layoffs for teachers and worse opportunities for students, whether your state has a cap on charter schools or not.

I've been slamming Arne Duncan's shock doctrine attack on public education for some time now, calling on Sacramento to repeal policy changes recently enacted to pursue the Race To The Top funds, only for Secretary Duncan to deny California's grant application. I also similarly called on the Washington State legislature to reject proposals that would make that state eligible for RTTT funds.

It makes no sense for states to adopt unproven educational reforms merely because the Secretary of Education pulls a dollar on a string in front of legislators. So it's good to see that this message is getting wider attention.

Although DC policy wonks like Ezra Klein embrace Duncan's attack on schools, those who study state budgets are sounding the alarm about the disastrous cuts looming at California schools. The California Budget Project today released a study of the local impact of state education cuts. The cuts are devastating to the ability of our children to learn, and the ability of our schools to provide the mandated improvements under current state and federal law.

Let me offer an example. Here in Monterey County, the Alisal school district in Salinas, which has been in program improvement under No Child Left Behind and is now being overseen by a state trustee. Alisal is in line for a $2 million reduction in funding, which translates into $287 fewer dollars per child -- in a state that is already one of the lowest in per-pupil spending in the country.

The fact that Arne Duncan is as silent as the night on those cuts, but aggressively pushing his shock doctrine "Race To The Top" scam, is a disturbing sign of a lack of commitment to K-12 education on the part of the federal government. President Obama pushed through stimulus funds that helped lessen the blow of state cuts in many districts last year, but is so far not making any moves to renew that funding this year.

On a day when the White House is touting its commitment to higher education, it is sad that they are not working to ensure that students in K-12 classrooms today will be able to make use of the student loan reforms when it comes time for them to apply to college. Unless the federal government reverses its policies and starts addressing the immediate crisis in the classroom, a whole generation will lose out on their education.

Did 'Race to the Top' Drive Education Commissioner’s Call that FCAT Scores are Fine?

August, 9 2010

Orlando Sentinel - Did FCAT bow to Race To The Top?

School district officials across Florida remain dissatisfied with state Education Commissioner’ Eric Smith’s decision last week to release annual school grades based on FCAT scores.

Officials still suspect scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test were faulty and therefore brought faulty — and often lower — grades for schools.

Today several members of the Central Florida Public School Boards Coalition said they suspect that Commissioner Smith rushed to say FCAT scores were accurate because he’s headed to Washington later this week to present the state’s case for receiving a big chunk of the $3.4 billion remaining in competitive Race To The Top grants for school improvement. Florida is one of 18 states in the running for the money, which the Obama adminstration is handing out in what some describe as Some-States-Left-Behind fashion.

The reasoning is simple, said Gail McKinzie, superintendent of Polk County schools. The feds want to give the money to districts that have sound accountability systems that can measure student and teacher performance. So the Florida delegation to D.C. would say, “uh, sorry, but our accountability system is currently in disarray, suspected of being inaccurate?”

“I think this is where Race To The Top took over,” said McKinzie, who is going to retire in a couple of months and apparently has taken off the kid gloves. “I don’t think it would have been politically correct if they didn’t reach the conclusion that the data were correct.”

I called the Department of Education asking for reaction by Commisioner Smith to the accusations that he rushed the audit of test results, as many school district officials charge. I didn’t expect him to say ’shoot, Dave, you got me dead to rights. ” And he didn’t.

“As Florida’s Commissioner of Education I have a responsibility and a legal obligation to release School Grades to the public as soon as possible following the confirmation of their accuracy. With three separate independent audits completed by some of the most reputable testing experts in the nation all confirming their accuracy I saw no reason to delay their release any further.”

His comment, passed on by one of his PR people, didn’t speak to whether Race To The Top was a consideration is saying FCAT was OK. But some local school district officials, including Volusia School Board member Candy Lankford, who also heads the Florida School Boards Association, suspects it did.

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