Sunday, August 29, 2010

Race to the Top Finalists Announced

Hmmmmmmmm...

The Obama administration announced 10 winners today in the second round of the “Race To The Top” stimulus grant competition for education reform: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

It may all be on the up and up, but there does seem to be a very heavy bias to the eastern seaboard except for Ohio (battleground state) and Hawaii (Obama’s home state).

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Are the schools in states in the deep South and west of the Mississippi just that good or are they that resistant to reform?

(6) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1351 hrs
Politics + Politics - General

  1. As expected, simplistic.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 29, 2010 at 1843 hrs


  2. I think DC won twice already.
    I don’t think it is political, otherwise NV would have won, since Harry Reid is in a tight race.
    Maybe those states know how to write grants.  That’s all this is- writing grants for big money.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 29, 2010 at 2257 hrs


  3. I can only speak to the situation here in Texas, but given the activities of the Texas Board of Education, I’m going with resistant to reform.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 30, 2010 at 1332 hrs


  4. So where did the $3.4 Billion come from?  Kind of sucks root to think that states have to compete with each other (10 got funded, 40 didn’t?) to get money back from the Federal Government.  New Jersey lost by 4 points because of a technical error in their 1000 page application.  Maybe some states concluded that the privilege for “competing” to get Federal dollars back to their state just wasn’t worth the aggravation.

    November can’t come soon enough to put an end to this kind of crap.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 30, 2010 at 1435 hrs


  5. The decision to limit the winners to 10 states was based on the amount of funding available.

    Well first & foremost, last I heard, DC wasn’t a state. Maybe that’s changed in the new geography books though.

    “The creativity and innovation in each of these applications is breathtaking. These states show what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said on a conference call this afternoon.

    It has to be worth noting, that much like writing a brilliant mission statement or business plan, all the “I’m a’ gonna’s ” in the world don’t mean diddly poo in terms of actually doing things. Of course I think this administration and it’s leader genuinely believe saying something is equivalent to doing it.

    Common threads among the 10 winners announced today include their bold approaches to turning around low-performing schools and their teacher evaluations systems.

    While teacher evaluations sounds promising, I can’t help but wonder…Bold approaches to turning around their lower performing schools? Isn’t the fact that they have low performing schools an indictment of the job they’ve done already? Isn’t this rewarding the “losers with a plan” sort of the same thing as giving your dog a treat when he poops on the floor? Bad doggie. Here’s a treat!

    Although Colorado and Louisiana are often praised for their reform and innovation, both states failed to get widespread union support for their proposals.

    ...and thus, no money for them. But I thought the teachers’ unions were all about putting the kids first… Seems like a pretty clear message though: toe the line with the unions or get no cash from the Administration.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 31, 2010 at 0100 hrs


  6. With the exception of Georgia, and maybe Florida, they are all blue states.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 31, 2010 at 2206 hrs


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