I've just finished reading the Race to the Top program executive summary released by the U.S. Department of Education last week and while there is much in it to excite reformers there seems to be a serious disconnect between its ambition and states' capability to actually deliver on reforms, given the ????grim fiscal realities they are facing (see Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril).
Using Ohio as an example is illuminating. To balance the FY 2010-11 budget lawmakers cut $4 billion in spending and used an infusion of $7 billion in????one-time federal stimulus dollars to patch it together. Even so, the state's politicians are in the midst of a battle royal over how to fill an $851 million budget hole that opened when the governor's race-track gambling bid for state revenues fell apart in recent weeks.
Ohio's current $51 billion budget is apt to face $8 to $12 billion in cuts and/or tax increases when it comes time to craft a budget for FY 2012-13. Enter into this fiscal nightmare Race to the Top funding. If Ohio wins in this sweepstakes it will receive somewhere between $200 and $400 million for various school innovations.???? This is a drop in the bucket, yet with this money the state must commit to a reform agenda that includes some expensive items, such as turning around lowest-achieving schools, implementing a statewide longitudinal data system, and linking student performance data to teachers.
Ohio already struggles to pay for the education agenda spelled out in this year's biennial budget (this year the governor cut the Early Learning Initiative, despite campaigning on a commitment to early childhood education; also receiving cuts were early college academies, charter schools, and the state's assessment budget). If the Buckeye State can't afford to pay for existing mandates, how realistic is it to expect that - even with a $200-400 million grant - it can afford to take on new ones?
