Education Week posted a blog recently with a link to the slew of comments offered up by folks in response the U.S. Department of Education's criteria for awarding the Race to the Top (RTTT) funds (i.e., $4 billion dollars in competitive grants). There are over 1,500 comments from educational organizations, think tanks, policymakers, advocacy groups, teachers, you name it...One could spend days and days combing through the PDF files, but here are a handful that I opened to read:
AERA: Like others, AERA is off-put by the emphasis on school turn-around strategies. They recommend that "all turn-around strategies proposed by state and local districts be strengthened by requiring a theoretical and research-based justification..." Don't hold your breath on that one. Unsurprisingly, they are also not happy about using student achievement as a central measure to evaluate teachers and principals. They contend that tests have not been validated for such purposes and that states should "justify whatever assessment measure [they] use rather than fixing on a single procedure."?? In other words, use multiple measures and water down the significance of student achievement...
Kate Walsh over at NCTQ is concerned that the definition of alternative certification routes in the RTTT language "seems more consistent with a traditional undergraduate preparation program than a true alternative." She's not keen on requiring a "clinical/student teaching experience" and says that the same goals can be met via intensive mentoring support.
Then there's a lengthy response from Cynthia Brown at Center for American Progress, Kati Haycock over at Education Trust, Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform, and Ellen Winn of the Education Equality Project. They are obviously concerned with equity issues. But also (rightly) suggest that high-quality tests and standards are just the beginning-states also need help devising high-quality curriculum, lessons, anchor assignments, diagnostic assessments, etc.
The Texas Charter School Association, unlike AERA, "supports effective teaching as measured by student results." They also think states "should lose significant competitive standing for a R2T grant if they don't provide adequate school-level autonomy or are implementing efforts to further restrict site flexibility." Sounds good to me.
Dan Koretz at Harvard, longtime critic of high-stakes testing, thinks some of the "core elements [of the RTTT proposed criteria] are unlikely to succeed and may cause substantial unintended harm." What are his concerns? That the priorities "exacerbate the already excessive focus on a narrow range of test scores as measures of educational success." He also spends a full page talking about the flaws of value-added measures.
I spent awhile looking for the??NGA and??CCSSO responses, but got tired filing through all of the web pages. Education Week had this to say about their commentary:
The NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers, which are partnering in the common standards effort, point out that the time line for states to adopt common standards is far more aggressive in the Education Department's criteria than in the agreement reached by states. (The states agreed to adopt standards within three years; the criteria call for them to be adopted in just one year.) In addition, the department's criteria call for all standards to be "identical" across states, whereas the states have agreed that 85 percent of their standards should match.
Hmmm...that does send a conflicting message; best to get those ducks in a row.
Finally, lest we think that only big name educational organizations and researchers submitted feedback, there was this from Isaac Ortiz who listed himself as "high school teacher." He had this to say:
I have noticed that World Languages is not included in the Race to the Top Fund. World Languages are essential to the world as we know it today. Please consider this area when giving out grants. Thank you.
Good luck with that one Isaac.
