Michigan loses chance for 'Race to the Top' education funds
Michigan lost its chance at receiving up to $400 million to help improve schools through the federal Race to the Top program, the Detroit Free Press reports.
Michigan wasn't among the 16 finalists of 41 applicants announced today by the U.S. Department of Education. The prize is a total of $4.35 billion in stimulus money for schools.
As AnnArbor.com reported in January, Michigan was seeking $526 million to make reforms in education.
All Washtenaw County school districts - with the exception of Dexter - signed memorandums of understanding saying they supported, in concept, the state’s application.
The final winners will be announced the first week in April.
The news isn’t all bad, though. Michigan can apply for a second round of stimulus money that begins in June, the Free Press reports.
Comments
Brit Satchwell
Mon, Mar 8, 2010 : 11:36 a.m.
Full disclosure... I'm the president of the Ann Arbor Education Association (the teachers' union). I was willing to sign the letter of intent to sign the RTTT MOU, a move that would have allowed me, the AAPS BoE, and administration time to read what was supposed to be a full description of what the MDE would have required all signing districts to actually implement if Michigan won the first round of the RTTT Lottery. As it turned out, MDE never fleshed out its original "blank check", choosing instead to use the time between its original signing deadline and its extended deadline to provide nothing more than rhetoric and justifications for its original generalities. I would not have signed its more embellished blank check. The district, however, did sign the MOU after adding fail safe escape clauses of its own. The clauses allowed AAPS to void its MOU if the state eventually sent less RTTT money than required to actually comply with RTTT (an indication of their level of confidence in the state). The district also included a clause protecting their right, and the right of the union, to continue to negotiate matters that have traditionally and sensibly been the purview of collective bargaining... a clause which I did and continue to appreciate as an indication of the new and productive labor/management partnerships forming within AAPS. Sadly, RTTT has now thrown a huge wrench into the reform issues AAPS and AAEA were formally addressing PRIOR to Michigan's RTTT legislative panic: teacher evaluations and merit pay. RTTT has tripled the evaluation work load of building principals by requiring that every teacher be evaluated every year... the principals have my sympathy for what may now be an impossible task unless they neglect their other duties to some significant extent or we conduct hasty drive-by evaluations and call them meaningful. All this just as our Evaluation Committee was about to begin test driving current research's gold standard of objective evaluation models, based on the work of Charlotte Danielson. The CD evaluation model focuses on teacher behaviors and pedagogy that are conclusively proven by research to increase learning. It removes the potential for subjectivity that has often hampered AAPS teacher evaluations from truly achieving their primary goals: timely tenure decisions, promoting effective teaching, and guiding ongoing individual professional development. By introducing objectivity and eliminating subjectivity, the CD model may have placed trust and reliability into our evaluations... our work has been to determine this. RTTT may turn out to be the wrench that stops that work. CD looks at teachers and teaching, not students and test scores. However, RTTT requires that a significant portion a teacher's performance - 40% to 60% - be determined by student performance. And of that 40% - 60%, 20% - 30% must be defined by state standardized test scores (MEAP). This is like saying that your mechanic should be evaluated based upon what roads you drive on and how responsibly you drive... all in the name of holding mechanics "accountable". Is this an "accountability" dodge? No. It is the search for actual, implementable, reality-based, research-supported accountability. Where do test scores enter the picture? In the merit pay equation. A purely objective and trusted evaluation should be one (!!!) of the measures of merit worth compensation. The fact that the public often mistakenly defaults to an inadequate and simplistic measure such as MEAP scores as the sole indicator of student achievement is a subject for another discussion... but teachers still grasp to the hope that they will be able to educate the public on this fallacy, and in doing so point everyone toward truer measures of student achievement. If and when we succeed we, together, can abandon our MEAP-dominated goose chases and make the real educational progress that everybody seeks. But back to RTTT and the wrench it has thrown into the good work that was in progress here. How does one apply MEAP scores to evaluate teachers who don't teach things covered by the MEAP such as counselors, speech pathologists, media IT specialists, PE teachers, art teachers, music teachers, many others? How does one use MEAP scores to evaluate teachers in grade levels that don't even have a MEAP? By using different evaluation models for each of these groups? If so, are they to be implemented by principals whose evaluative duties were just tripled by RTTT even if only one evaluation model is used? Members of the public who have blindly cried out for reform as defined by nothing more than test scores tied to teachers have now created the RTTT wrench in Michigan that defeats their own purpose. Their mypoic cries for "teacher accountability" have now stampeded politicians before them. It will now be immensely more difficult for those folks, insistent public and stampeded politicians alike, to take yes for an answer to their requests for meaningful reform and accountability. RTTT can force us to attach a chicken coop (MEAP) to a nuclear sub (Charlotte Danielson), but it won't float. Ever.
DonBee
Mon, Mar 8, 2010 : 8:41 a.m.
Steve - Thank you for your article. I do not have time to write a good response this morning, but I will tomorrow.
Steve Norton, MIPFS
Mon, Mar 8, 2010 : 12:11 a.m.
OK, DonBee, I'll engage you on this because I think the issue is too important to ignore. But my reply got too long to simply place here, so I filed my own education "story" here on AnnArbor.com. I invite you, and any other interested readers, to follow this link: http://www.annarbor.com/community/news/education/hurdles_on_the_race_to_the_top/
DonBee
Sun, Mar 7, 2010 : 5:55 p.m.
Steve Norton - Once again your only answer is more money. Is there anything we can do, in your mind, that does not mean more money, that will help education? Or are we so tapped out that only more money will do anything at all to make education better? And if more money is the whole answer, how do we know that by adding "X" dollars we will get "Y: results? You have shot down testing, and evaluation, and have said there are no useful metrics on education. So I am wondering how do we measure the improvement that more money will give us? I am not poking fun at you, I am serious. I am looking for ways to make things better, and I am not willing to just throw money at a problem. I need to understand how to measure the impact of more money on the problem.
Steve Norton, MIPFS
Sun, Mar 7, 2010 : 12:06 p.m.
The whole RttT program was confused from the start. The detailed Federal requirements were not even published until November, leaving state governments less than two months to figure out what they might need to do to meet the Federal criteria, and work appropriate legislation through. Some of this required very complicated and risky changes, which worried informed observers. It also created an incentive to "out-reform the reformers," by making state laws even more radical than the Federal standards. In many cases, these got shot down because they made no sense. For instance: the original proposal that student achievement (measured through standardized tests or other objective measures) should comprise at least 60% of a teacher's evaluation. The Federal rules said only that it should be "significant." Well, think about it at the elementary level: we only test a few areas (math, reading and writing, and a bit of science and social studies). There are no "objective" standards for everything else classroom teachers do, and none for subjects like art or music. This continues to be true at middle and high school in many subjects (foreign language, for instance, where there is no state test). Right now we are in the midst of stripping our schools of resources, and one of the top targets is administration. But who will develop these "standards" and apply them? Administrators - mostly principals who are charged with evaluating their staff. And for teachers, well - can you imagine if your job was going to be evaluated with 60% of your performance judged on criteria that don't even exist yet? I have no quarrel with accountability; I think it is crucial. But subjecting educators to standards which are at best partial and at worst a patchwork of meaningless measures simply will not improve teaching or our schools. As to what reforms were "blocked," the main changes I'm aware of are changing the 60% requirement back to the Federal language of "significant role," and exempting Special Education teachers from the interim certification option. Many teachers' unions refused to sign agreements with the state because no regulations had been written explaining how all this would be implemented. Most school boards only signed on after attaching a provision that they could opt out if funding did not materialize. Some districts - Saline for example - chose not to sign because the potential benefit to them was so small (under $20,000, I think) that it did not cover the costs they'd incur jumping through the new hoops. There are things we can do to improve our schools, but contrary to "conventional wisdom" it will require more resources, not less.
sh1
Sat, Mar 6, 2010 : 11:43 a.m.
Amen, Rosie. Sad we can find money to bail out banks but we still have impoverished families sending kids to neglected schools.
Rosie
Sat, Mar 6, 2010 : 10:22 a.m.
"Race to the Top" Why should our states be in competition for support for quality education? That anyone could believe that this is an excellent program is unfathomable. It should be a given that all students in our country deserve a quality education. There should be no "Top" leaving others at the "Bottom." Those who are at the bottom may need those funds more than other more affluent areas, but don't have the means/resources/time to obtain those funds. This type of "funding program" only exacerbates the educational funding issue further.
Lisa Starrfield
Sat, Mar 6, 2010 : 9:38 a.m.
Dagny and Braggslaw, You blame the teachers' union for losing the funding. We refused to sign because we were asked to sign a document that hadn't been written yet. IF we had agreed to it, we would have been bound by law to whatever conditions they would have put in. You wouldn't be stupid enough to lease a car without knowing the price, the annual milage, or about any balloon payments, would you? The state of Michigan should have handled this properly, written the document and then brought it to the unions. They didn't. Put the blame where it belongs.. on the politicians.
sh1
Sat, Mar 6, 2010 : 9:23 a.m.
@Snapshot: could you cite an example or two of how teachers' unions impede quality of education and accountability? I hear Rush Limbaugh talk about this a lot, but I've yet to hear someone knowledgeable with specifics.
snapshot
Fri, Mar 5, 2010 : 10:43 p.m.
Andrew Thomas and AMOC you guys are right on the money. Our school leadership and union reps represented us in a haphazard manner with minimum commitment, as in "agree, in concept" but certainly not accountability specifics. These are the folks educating the children. Parents should be VERY concerned for their childrens educational future. DonBee--you are one bright and informed guy but I can't be as forgiving as you are with these "steamroller unions". They are impeding quality education and accountability for teachers. I just don't see unions as a productive aspect of our educational system. I see them protecting incompetance and impeding innovation.
sh1
Fri, Mar 5, 2010 : 5:29 p.m.
@Dagny: You're upset that teachers didn't sign on to a "half-baked" job from a "stupid state"?
DonBee
Fri, Mar 5, 2010 : 1:51 p.m.
@Mugsy - The proposal will end up getting implemented, even without the federal money. The deal was, the "reforms" had to happen even if they were not funded. The best thing that can happen now, is for everyone to dig in and make the June 2010 submission the best it can possibly be, so that we have a reasonable chance at funding in the next round. Let's not point fingers and all work together. What I keep hearing from people, regardless of their leaning is that children deserve a good education, so lets come up with ways to make the money we have provide that education. OBTW - the reduction in property values will cause the school funds to fall too, so they will see a double or triple whammy this fall. My valuation fell for the second year, taking over the two years 33 percent off the value of my property. I suspect others have seen similar falls. I am glad that there is a basket of taxes that support schools - even if others don't like the mix, the mix has made the fall less steep than it would have been.
kht
Fri, Mar 5, 2010 : 12:26 p.m.
I'm always skeptical of comments like "we live in the best county in the world", or "we have the best health care in the world". Only someone who has lived in (or least visited) many other countries could possibly have any credibility!
Stephen Carl Marosi
Fri, Mar 5, 2010 : 11:01 a.m.
A choice was made to get rid of unions in this country. Both parties played an active role in the free trade agreements that got us into the economic mess we are eperiencing. Teachers unions were no exception - No Child Left Behind was designed to decimate public schools by demanding requirements - not funding them - offering charter options without many of the same requirements - chaos! Unions are not free from blame, by any means. The ongoing misuse of power, tatics, and funds put them in a position to be targeted. We live in the best country in the world - I pray we stay that way.
AMOC
Fri, Mar 5, 2010 : 9:52 a.m.
I'm disappointed but not surprised that Michigan's hasty and half-hearted effort, sabotaged in several cases by union officials reluctant to go along with the accountability requirements, did not win in the initial round of Race To the Top funding. I'm even more disappointed that our state legislature is not going to fund implementation of even the limited reforms they put in place to become eligible. Though there is still time for that situation to improve our chances for the next round of funding. That said, the Federal government should NOT be in the business of directly funding K-12 education. I think the intent behind "Race To the Top" is excellent, but most activities of the Federal Department of Education rest on very shaky legal ground. Setting standards, funding research on teaching, mandating civil rights for all and appropriate accommodations for people with disabilities, defining minimum curriculum standards, sure. Those activities could be justified on Constitutional grounds. But paying directly for locally-controlled schools? Nope. According to our Federal and Michigan constitutions, that's the responsibility of the state.
DagnyJ
Fri, Mar 5, 2010 : 7:36 a.m.
What a stupid state! let's do a half-baked job so we don't get $400 million for schools. Or...turn our nose up at it. The teachers helped too, refusing to sign for a bit. when your schools have no money, you can fund them with spite.
AAmom
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 8:24 p.m.
Our school district did not sign on (Oakland County) and it did sound like it would involve more committees, paperwork and nothing to help education...just a big waste of salaries, time and more testing- which we do not need.
braggslaw
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 6:05 p.m.
The teachers unions killed our chances
jon67
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 5:28 p.m.
The Federal Government should be focused on getting my Toyota fixed, first off, and then, on setting up a national collegiate football championship playoff. Let's get our priorities right.
Mugsy
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 3:29 p.m.
I agree with B whole-heartedly. MI's proposal was terrible and had they gotten the money it would have done NOTHING to improve schools.
B
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 3:04 p.m.
This is a good thing. Much like "No Child Left Behind" RTT is a flawed program and would have beholden us to arbitrary and capricious standards that do nothing to actually improve our schools.
packman
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 3:01 p.m.
This is what you get for sending Stabenow and Levin to DC time after time. The stimulus is a slush fund for Obama favorites. Does MI have to go Republican to get noticed?
Top Cat
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 3 p.m.
Education is a national issue, not a Federal issue. State and local government should be funding and providing education. The Federal Government should be focused on defending the USA, protecting our borders and fighting China's currency manipulation which takes our jobs.
cinnabar7071
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 2:54 p.m.
Hope and change?
Andrew Thomas
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 2:46 p.m.
I can't say I'm surprised, or even disappointed. Michigan's proposal was thrown together at the last minute, more a response to the funding crisis than a genuine effort to reform in any meaningful way. Sort of like a term paper you put off until the day before it's due -- skimpy research, not well thought-out, poorly written. Maybe next time, this process will be given a little more thought.
Macabre Sunset
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 12:43 p.m.
Since it's our money in the first place, I have a better idea: why have the "stimulus" in the first place? We are saddling the same children this application sought to educate with debt the size of which our economy simply cannot manage. A big part of this new debt is "stimulus" money. Which, as it turns out, only went to bonuses for bank executives who have friends in Washington, and a few billion here and there essentially treated as lotteries. Obviously, Michigan's educational system would only "win" if someone needed to pay off a favor to a Michigan congressman.