State races to compete for ‘Race to the Top’
Published: January 1, 2010
With a Jan. 19 deadline fast approaching, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state Legislature and the California Department of Education are scrambling to make California’s application for the “Race to the Top” federal grant program as competitive as possible. If successful, California could receive from $350 million to $700 million, officials estimate.
Seeking buy-in from as many local educational agencies as possible to gain maximum points on California’s RTTT application, state officials urged LEAs to sign a memorandum of understanding by Jan. 8 agreeing to support their plans for RTTT-required education reforms. CDE and CSBA posted background materials and guidance on their Web sites (see links below).
The state Senate and Assembly have passed competing special-session bills to create the necessary framework for the state’s application. Senate Bill X5 1, introduced last August by state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles and backed by the governor, lacks the support of most of the education community because it would go beyond the requirements of RTTT—allowing parents, for example, to move their children from a low-performing school to any public school of their choice.
Assembly Education Committee chair Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, waited until the U.S. Department of Education finalized its RTTT rules last month to introduce her measure, Assembly Bill X5 8. Like the Senate bill, AB X5 8 addresses federal requirements, but it was developed with greater input and consensus from school board members, administrators and teachers and is supported by CSBA.
Brownley’s bill includes components not in the Senate bill, such as stronger accountability for charter schools, and it would require that 80 percent of RTTT funds go directly to schools versus 50 percent in the Romero bill. AB X5 8 also proposes clear procedures for identifying and turning around persistently low-performing schools, evaluating administrators, and ensuring equitable distribution of teachers and administrators in needy schools.
Because AB X5 8 would require charter schools to meet the same fiscal and academic performance standards as non-charter public schools, the governor and other proponents of the Senate bill have claimed that the Assembly bill would favor the status quo in education by adding another layer of bureaucracy–a charge CSBA President Frank Pugh rejects.
“It is discouraging and puzzling that the governor believes that his own principles of transparency, accountability and high standards for all students should not be applied to charter schools,” Pugh said.
The full Senate approved a compromise Senate bill, SB X5 4, Dec. 17, but Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, reportedly remained concerned that some provisions exceeded federal requirements. Neither Senate bill had survived a floor vote in the Assembly by press time, and the Senate had rejected Brownley’s Assembly bill.
Required reforms
The $4.35 billion RTTT program focuses on four education reform goals that participating states must commit to: enhancing academic standards and assessments, improving the collection and use of education data, improving teacher effectiveness and achieving equity in teacher distribution, and turning around struggling schools. State applications will be scored on a 500-point scale assessing their commitment to those goals.
That first reform means the state must agree to adopt common core standards, presumably those being developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The deadline for states to adopt the standards is Aug. 2, although final K-12 standards won’t be issued before February, leaving little time for states to consider them. States that adopt common standards later in the year will receive fewer points on their RTTT application.
In the memorandum of understanding state officials are seeking LEA agreement on, California agrees to adopt the standards “in such a manner as to not lower our rigorous expectations for students”; to revise its curriculum frameworks in math and English during 2011; and to align instructional materials, assessments and the state accountability system with the common core standards by 2015.
RTTT also requires states to identify the lowest 5 percent of persistently low-achieving schools and to specify how they will intervene and turn them around. The basis for identifying the schools and how they will exit intervention raise many questions.
Furthermore, although the prospect of receiving up to $700 million is tempting, the funds—no more than 1 percent or so of the state’s total education budget—will be gone within four years, while the structural changes being made to the educational system may be here to stay.
A second phase of RTTT grants will be awarded in September, with applications due June 1, so California could wait to apply until the details of the program are fleshed out, or try again if the application fails.
Easy links:
Read CSBA’s MOU guidance, "Urgent Advisory: Race to the Top Memorandum of Understanding"
The California Department of Education has information on the RTTT MOU and related resources.