FrankRep
01-27-2010, 05:50 PM
The Race to the Top (RTTT) is a competitive grant program that pushes Obama’s comprehensive education reform package and its dictates onto school districts that volunteer to be grant recipients has some trouble aspects; it is not run in a transparent manner as promised, and might be used to coerce school districts. By Ann Shibler
Race to the Top: Transparency is Missing (http://www.jbs.org/education-blog/5901-race-to-the-top-transparency-is-missing)
Ann Shibler | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
27 January 2010
The Race to the Top (RTTT) is a competitive grant program (http://www.jbs.org/education-blog/5895-next-obama-push-nationalization-of-education) that pushes Obama’s comprehensive education reform package and its dictates onto school districts that volunteer to be grant recipients. With the exposure the program is getting from school districts, teachers’ unions, and some states, there are some unsettling problems surfacing with certain aspects of the program.
The RTTT philosophy is the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s education plans. Education advocates in Washington are said to be “betting” (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/06/16esea_ep.h29.html?tkn=VZPFvCaf7j0We2baKr7cLHCbOOL wxPI94dnM) that the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will have incorporated into it many of the RTTT requirements. Therefore, is the RTTT a template or trial balloon for a new and expanded ESEA, or is it a prerequisite for something else?
Education Week reports (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2010/01/transparency_watch_rttt_judges.html) that a certain amount of favoritism may come into play by the administration for those school districts who have played the game by adopting certain RTTT practices, making that “a contingency for receiving Title I aid for disadvantaged students” in the future.
Another troubling aspect is that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pledged to conduct an open and transparent competition for the RTTT funds. In typical Obama administration fashion, there has been no transparency. In fact, there is quite a bit of downright secrecy.
The Department of Education (DOE) made no secret of their plan to hire between 50 to 80 “peer reviewers” to vet the hundreds of expected grant applications. The DOE selected 60 of these judges without disclosing what the requisites were for the job, or the expertise and experience of those chosen. Nonetheless these reviewers were then sent to a training session, with nothing being reported about the nature of the training received, what were the priorities, etc. Even their compensation has been kept a secret. But worst of all, the DOE will not release the names of the judges who are expected to score the applications on a 500-point grading scale. But perhaps it doesn’t matter because the final say on who wins is still in the hands of Arne Duncan.
Already the process is wasteful and corrupt because too much power has already been centralized in the unaccountable but burgeoning and interfering Department of Education.
Meaningful reform will happen only after we abandon the assembly line, one-size-fits-none pedagogy mismanaged by a secret and unelected top-heavy bureaucracy, and return to the true basics of education controlled by elected school boards with parental input at the local level.
Contact your congressmen today (http://www.votervoice.net/Groups/JBS/Advocacy/?IssueID=20433&SiteID=-1) and insist that they refrain from further funding RTTT. Also contact your state legislators and governors (http://www.votervoice.net/Groups/JBS/Advocacy/?IssueID=20434&SiteID=-1), letting them know that withdrawal from federal money and control is the only solution for retaining any amount of local determination in educational matters. Then you can engage your local school board members in a discussion to help educate them on the issue, alerting them to the dangers of the unbreakable chains that come with federal money.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/education-blog/5901-race-to-the-top-transparency-is-missing
Race to the Top: Transparency is Missing (http://www.jbs.org/education-blog/5901-race-to-the-top-transparency-is-missing)
Ann Shibler | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
27 January 2010
The Race to the Top (RTTT) is a competitive grant program (http://www.jbs.org/education-blog/5895-next-obama-push-nationalization-of-education) that pushes Obama’s comprehensive education reform package and its dictates onto school districts that volunteer to be grant recipients. With the exposure the program is getting from school districts, teachers’ unions, and some states, there are some unsettling problems surfacing with certain aspects of the program.
The RTTT philosophy is the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s education plans. Education advocates in Washington are said to be “betting” (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/06/16esea_ep.h29.html?tkn=VZPFvCaf7j0We2baKr7cLHCbOOL wxPI94dnM) that the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will have incorporated into it many of the RTTT requirements. Therefore, is the RTTT a template or trial balloon for a new and expanded ESEA, or is it a prerequisite for something else?
Education Week reports (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2010/01/transparency_watch_rttt_judges.html) that a certain amount of favoritism may come into play by the administration for those school districts who have played the game by adopting certain RTTT practices, making that “a contingency for receiving Title I aid for disadvantaged students” in the future.
Another troubling aspect is that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pledged to conduct an open and transparent competition for the RTTT funds. In typical Obama administration fashion, there has been no transparency. In fact, there is quite a bit of downright secrecy.
The Department of Education (DOE) made no secret of their plan to hire between 50 to 80 “peer reviewers” to vet the hundreds of expected grant applications. The DOE selected 60 of these judges without disclosing what the requisites were for the job, or the expertise and experience of those chosen. Nonetheless these reviewers were then sent to a training session, with nothing being reported about the nature of the training received, what were the priorities, etc. Even their compensation has been kept a secret. But worst of all, the DOE will not release the names of the judges who are expected to score the applications on a 500-point grading scale. But perhaps it doesn’t matter because the final say on who wins is still in the hands of Arne Duncan.
Already the process is wasteful and corrupt because too much power has already been centralized in the unaccountable but burgeoning and interfering Department of Education.
Meaningful reform will happen only after we abandon the assembly line, one-size-fits-none pedagogy mismanaged by a secret and unelected top-heavy bureaucracy, and return to the true basics of education controlled by elected school boards with parental input at the local level.
Contact your congressmen today (http://www.votervoice.net/Groups/JBS/Advocacy/?IssueID=20433&SiteID=-1) and insist that they refrain from further funding RTTT. Also contact your state legislators and governors (http://www.votervoice.net/Groups/JBS/Advocacy/?IssueID=20434&SiteID=-1), letting them know that withdrawal from federal money and control is the only solution for retaining any amount of local determination in educational matters. Then you can engage your local school board members in a discussion to help educate them on the issue, alerting them to the dangers of the unbreakable chains that come with federal money.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/education-blog/5901-race-to-the-top-transparency-is-missing