Ohio school districts and charters that signed onto the state's Race to the Top proposal had until October 22 to submit their plans for implementation to the Ohio Department of Education. The most controversial aspects of Ohio's application (such as determining the percentage and type of student growth data used to inform teacher evaluations) were left up to districts and their unions to negotiate, so we assumed that ODE would usher most of the applications through. Compared to other states, Ohio had a mild plan in many aspects so theoretically it'd be easier for districts to commit to its promises.
Not so. According to Gongwer News Service (subscription required), ODE rejected nearly all RttT proposals ? only six out of 528 passed (full) muster! Another 98 submissions were ?approved with conditions? while the rest of the pile ? 396 ? were sent back to district and school officials for revision.
A spokesperson at ODE said that this shouldn't be ?surprising? and referenced Tennessee, a round 1 winner that rejected all scopes of work initially. Gongwer noted that:
?the most common reasons scopes of work required modification were that they did not completely answer questions posed, the budget they submitted and the budget in the scope of work did not add up, or the performance measures were not specific enough.
It's still a bit confusing, however, as to whether ODE put the kibosh on the majority of applications for substantive reasons or technical ones. Were applications rejected because LEA plans weren't rigorous enough or aligned fully enough with the pillars of RttT, or were most rejected for banal reasons ? because answers were left blank or because districts and charters threw together half-assed proposals under the assumption that they'd get the money either way. (I think probably the latter.)
This also raises another question ? will more LEAs drop out of RttT because it's too much work? Emmy lifted up one example of a district claiming hardship due to RttT reporting requirements. The district pulled out of RttT (and left nearly a million dollars on the table) because they were pre-occupied with resolving their teacher contract.
Is this happening in other states, Flypaper readers?
- Jamie Davies O'Leary
