They say you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. That just about sums up the differences between the Race to the Top's ???proposed priorities??? and the final versions released today. It appears high inspiration was tempered by the various and messy forces of politics and policy-making.
The initial offerings were big and bold???reform-oriented to a fault???so much so they attracted the ire of the unions and others. The final documents, though still possessing a reform bent, are more measured and certainly more workmanlike.
This is the consequence of a couple things. First, unlike the drafts, these versions couldn't be merely aspirational; the time for sausage-making had come. These had to get into the weeds and deal with grimy implementation issues. Second, the changes make it clear that the Department was greatly influenced by the 1,000+ public comments sent through the federal register (and the who-knows-how-many-else shared behind closed doors). So many opinions coming from so many angles tends to have a moderating effect.
And in the middle, of course, stands the establishment, whose fingerprints are visible throughout today's release. For instance, there's a much greater focus on traditional interventions (like professional development and training) and the stuff of day-to-day district management (like developing meaningful teacher and principal evaluation systems). Certainly nothing wrong here.
But this bend toward the system also raises important questions. For example, does the increased weight now given to ???multiple measures??? in teacher evaluations mean that student performance data???the real reform element???might get crowded out? And what exactly are ???local instructional improvements systems????
The establishment's wins also raise a few concerns. There's greater leeway for districts to use less aggressive interventions with failing schools (the ???transformation model???); states are invited to argue that district-run faux charters are a substitute for a real charter law; and a charter law with a cap can garner points.
In other ways though, the document admirably withstood powerful centripetal forces. It still embraces invaluable reforms like data use, charters, and efforts to improve the teaching profession. Fans of national standards will also be pleased. The Department also deserves credit for properly emphasizing the need to have LEAs not just promise, but contractually commit, to executing reforms; ED even developed a draft MOU for states to use with their districts.
One particular nod to the prerogatives of institutional players, however, was smart. In several places, the document reflects the importance of getting lots of stakeholders to buy into reform at the local level (no doubt a result of Secretary Duncan's experience in Chicago).
But there are also a few critically important shortcomings. A section on performance pay, tenure reform, and teacher dismissals fails to even reference union contracts. In most places (and in all major cities), you simply can't address any of these issues without fundamentally altering collective bargaining agreements.??Similarly, while attention is given to expanding the best teacher preparation programs, there's no mention of addressing the lowest performing of these institutions. And finally, though Duncan warned states for more than six months that unwisely spending earlier ARRA dollars would disqualify them for RTT grants, the scoring rubric only allots 1 percent of its possible points???5 of 500???to this matter, meaning those who defied Secretary Duncan are all but absolved. (In fairness, the Department thinks this issue is embedded in other places, but I don't see it).
There's a commonality among these three oversights that I can't help but mention. Addressing these issues head-on would have meant unambiguously confronting unions, colleges of education, superintendents, and school boards???some of the most powerful, status quo-defending entities in K-12 schooling. Interestingly, and laudably, Secretary Duncan has shown a willingness to take them on elsewhere; I wish he had here.
Though all of the above issues are important, the real race actually starts right now. States will begin crafting their proposals in earnest. What goes into them and how the peer reviewers score them are what really matters.
I give the Department credit for all of the work they've done and all of the thought they've put into this. It certainly shows. I'm pleased that the RTT still seeks to drive reform; I'm just concerned that ???reform??? is set a bit lower than I envisioned (degree not substance???maybe that's the ultimate difference between poetry and prose). Ideally, cash-hungry states will try to out-reform each other, making this bar irrelevant; indeed, some might say there are 4.35 billion reasons to believe this to be the case.