Racing to reform

As further evidence of the sea-change at the Washington Post and the NYT,
here's the WP editorial, which praises Duncan, but calls on him to push the
envelope even further. I love it, especially the part that calls New York's
lame rationalizations "ridiculous"! (Highlighted below)

Racing to reform
The rules are set, but how the education funds are allotted is key.

Washington Post editorial, Friday, November 13, 2009

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/12/AR2009111210110_pf.
html

WITHOUT spending a penny, Education Secretary Arne Duncan prodded states to
take important, if small, steps toward school reform. Hoping to win funds
from his forthcoming Race to the Top
<http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html> competition, states
dismantled barriers to the use of student achievement data in assessing
teachers, lifted caps on charter schools and raised standards for getting a
teaching license. Given this achievement even before firing the starting gun
in his race, Mr. Duncan is entitled to the benefit of the doubt when he says
that only states committed to real innovation will be awarded federal
dollars.

The first applications for these grants are due in mid-January, so final
regulations were issued this week. A complex scoring system will be used to
judge state applications, with an emphasis on rewarding those with effective
reform agendas and with support from key stakeholders such as local school
systems. Almost immediately, some reform groups -- the Center for Education
Reform and the Education Trust, for example -- accused the administration of
diluting its demands and weakening standards.

Concerns about potential loopholes are not misplaced; draft regulations have
been weakened. But the administration did not abandon its core principles.
Still in the rules is an insistence that student achievement be a
significant factor in teacher and principal evaluations, that charter and
other innovative schools be encouraged, that states take action to turn
around failing schools and that states work toward national standards.

More important than parsing the language of the regulations will be the
process used to evaluate applications. Some states, such as Colorado and
Louisiana, seem be taking the mandates seriously, as they formed statewide
coalitions to develop credible plans. Others seem more interested in gaming
the system. Here, New York comes to mind with its ridiculous argument that
it should qualify because its union-inspired law banning the use of student
performance data applies to tenure and so technically is not a ban on use
for evaluations -- as if tenure were not the ultimate evaluation.

It's a coup for Mr. Duncan that he has managed to use $4 billion -- a drop
in the nation's bucket of education spending -- to get much of the country
talking about the need for reform. The real test, though, lies ahead in his
ability to resist political pressure to spread the fund evenly and instead
to target the money to states that are truly committed to reform.