For months, federal officials have dangled the promise of big money for states that turbocharge their school reform efforts.
As a result, many states, including Illinois, are competing hard in the second round of the Obama administration’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top challenge grant.
They’re reshaping stagnant educational protocols. They’re increasing the number of charter schools. They’re moving to put better teachers in classrooms, carefully track their performance, and pay them more when their students improve.
But now, just as the feds are mulling the next batch of possible winners, there’s a wrinkle.
The House recently voted to snatch $500 million of the reform money and funnel it to propping up the status quo.
What a terrible idea. The sponsor of the amendment, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, says the money is needed to avert threatened teacher layoffs across the country. “When a ship is sinking, you don’t worry about redesigning a room, you worry about keeping it afloat,” an Obey spokesman said.
Yes, public school systems in Illinois and the rest of the country are under real financial pressure. But $500 million spread around the country isn’t going to save them.
If the House measure prevails, though, Race to the Top will become Crawl to the Middle. The states will have less incentive to compete and less money to carry out reforms.
President Barack Obama has rightly threatened a veto if the measure gets to his desk. The Senate should spike it first.
Race to the Top has stirred a lot of excitement. The Obama administration, so far, has set a high bar. Only two states, Tennessee and Delaware, snared grants in the first round of competition. (Illinois finished fifth, out of the money.) We’ll soon see if Illinois and the other 35 states that fine-tuned their applications for round two will be rewarded.
The Obama administration should keep the expectations high. If states don’t make strong, meaningful reform efforts and don’t have buy-in from teachers unions and local schools, then they shouldn’t get money. If states don’t measure up, keep the money in the federal treasury or go on to a round three.
It would be a grave mistake to hand out money for half-hearted efforts — how often have we seen that in public education? And a grave mistake to divert this money to routine operations, as Obey envisions.
The race is on. Members of Congress, pat yourselves on the back for your role in creating Race to the Top. But don’t trip up the effort. You need to stay out of the way.
