Thoughts on “Race to the Top”

I’ve been reading lately about the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” fund and have read a couple of blog posts about it. I thought I would post my response to a post on Seeking Shared Learning, as it sums up my thoughts on this new funding/mandate from the Secretary of Education. Feel free to comment.

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“It will certainly be interesting to hear your perspective as more details of these guidelines become clearer. I have yet to read all 80+ pages of the guidelines, so I can’t say I know everything about what is being proposed.

Even so, my wonder at all of this – dating back to ESEA – is the constitutionality of this sort of move. In my eyes, the whole thing seems shady at best.

As the government has no constitutional standing to make educational mandates (that being left to the states in the 10th Amendment), it seems that the federal government has found its loophole, along with a way to wholly influence the education system through federal funding. While initially it was a series of grants, once schools were accustomed to the money (and it had been factored into state budgets), conditions were attached. States and schools had two choices – accept the conditions and continue receiving the funding they had come to depend on, or refuse the conditions and turn down a massive amount of money that would benefit your school/district/state. The funding issue became a lose/lose situation for many districts.

As we’re seeing, this process only continues to intensify, through NCLB and now RTTT. Again states are left with a choice – accept the conditions/mandates attached to the billions of dollars in funding, or turn down billions of dollars in federal funding because they believe in the kind of education they are giving students. It seems to me that this is a hazy issue, and if this had different players and wasn’t about funding, I think we would consider it a despicable move (give someone a product for free, then once they’re hooked on it, slowly raise the price on the product), but that’s just opinion.

The more practical question is what effect this will have on our district’s curriculum efforts. If we believe that thinking skills and habits of mind and our outcomes and indicators are what education should really be about, does the RTTT “fund” really help us reach that goal? Does putting more emphasis on test scores – particularly as a way of rewarding/punishing teachers and principals – really help us teach students these skills?

My gut answer is no. I expect teachers and administrators would act like most creatures do. We would either pursue the reward of higher compensation by focusing students almost exclusively on test results, or we would act in self-preservation and try to keep our jobs by focusing entirely on test scores. In either case, it is the things Tahoma espouses – thinking skills, habits of mind, etc. – that would be sacrificed in the exchange.

Of course, I’m just a small fry in a vast ocean of educational politics, and could be completely dramatizing the situation. Even so, I wonder if, from an administrative perspective, you see this (RTTT) in the same way, or if you are envisioning greater benefits from this set of guidelines than I currently foresee.”

Government and Education

What is the government’s role in education? A recent post at AssortedStuff got me thinking about this question by critiquing a comment from Arnold Schwarzenegger about prescribing curriculum, then adding his own critique on mandated testing.

I decided I didn’t know enough about government’s role in education and felt like doing some research, so I pulled out one of the texts from my MAEd program: Teachers, Schools, and Society: A Brief Introduction to Education. I began my research, however, with our nation’s most important document: the U.S. Constitution. On the topic of education, the Constitution is notably silent. It does not guarantee any right to an education, nor does it specifically imply that government has any role in education. Of course, this does not mean that the founding fathers didn’t value education – Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were both actively involved in establishing schools with broader, liberal arts focuses.

If the constitution didn’t say anything, however, at what point does the government become involved in education issues? According to the US Department of Education’s website, “Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation” (US Dept. of Education). Then how does the federal government become involved in school affairs?

With the Land Ordinance Act of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the government mandated that states and cities were required to set land aside for education purposes. As quoted in Article III of the Northwest Ordinance (which incidentally follows guidelines on the freedom of religious worship and the right of habeus corpus), “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

Breaking, for a moment, from the quotes, I can’t help but look at that last statement. I can’t help but notice the last word: encouraged. Because there is nothing in the Constitution regarding education, there is essentially no reason for government involvement. However, because it is so clearly an integral part of a successful nation and culture, the government likely decided it needed a say in education. Thus, instead of mandating or requiring anything, the government began to find ways to “encourage” education in certain directions.

So how does the government “encourage” the education system? A quick read through that same DoE page ought to give us a pretty good idea: ”[The Department of Education] works hard to get a big bang for its taxpayer-provided bucks by targeting its funds where they can do the most good.” In addition, “The Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is a little under 9 percent…”

For an even better picture, look at the history of federal legislation regarding education: the Morrill Land Grant College Acts, which donated public land to establish colleges; the Smith-Hughes Act, which provided funds for teacher training; the GI Bill, which paid for veteran’s tuition; the NDEA, which launched big-time funding for education; the Elementary and Secondary Education act, which gave financial assistance to school districts; and of course, No Child Left Behind, which imposes conditions for federal funding of schools and districts.

So how does the government “encourage” education? By using money. Based on what I’ve read of NCLB, it does not by any means “mandate” that states, districts, and schools do anything. To say otherwise, I believe, would be incorrect. Instead, the federal government attaches requirements to federal funding for education. This means that, if a state so chooses, it can turn down federal funding and not have to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. Of course, many will argue (and justifiably so) that this simply blackmails states into doing what the federal government wants, as no person or entity can simply turn down a tenth of its income – that would simply devastate the local education system.

Returning back to the question at hand, however: what is the government’s role in education? From what I can tell, the government’s role is like that of George Steinbrenner, the iconic owner of the New York Yankees. Steinbrenner is renowned for requiring certain things of his players – clean shaven, businesslike, and so on. However, Steinbrenner was the man who signed the checks, so players did it  – much like the states follow through on the requirements of NCLB and other federal legislation.

The question I pose to you: what’s so bad about NCLB? Why should the government not be involved in trying to improve the national education system when education is generally accepted as a national issue (for evidence of this, just talk to John McCain or Barack Obama)? What changes would you like to see in federal education legislation?