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The latest column by the superb Washington Post writer Jay Mathews is about turnarounds and the stimulus.  Like me, he’s in favor of closing failing schools and starting fresh instead of trying to fix those in a persistent state of underperformance. (He uses arguments and data from my Education Next article “The Turnaround Fallacy” to build his case.)

A couple months ago, it looked like the turnaround train had built up enough steam to easily blow by any questions or concerns. But when someone like Mathews (author of Escalante and Work Hard, Be Nice, two of the most important books about pockets of educational excellence in urban America) starts yelling, “slow down!” the conductor is apt to take notice.

With $4.35 billion from the Race to the Top and $3 billion from the School Improvement Grant program at stake, our getting this right is critically important for disadvantaged kids and taxpayers as well.

Today, the Department of Education releases its much-anticipated final criteria for the Race to the Top program (RTT). I’m not as keen on the final versions as I was on the draft “proposed priorities” released a couple months ago, but overall it’s still mostly laudable.

Unions and others roundly criticized the first versions, but reformers were pretty excited by their scope and verve. The amended documents are less intrepid, much more palatable to the establishment. But I don’t think we necessarily need to see this as a loss; elsewhere I compared the shift to the difference between campaigning in poetry and governing in prose.

In terms of timing and process, there will be two competitions, with awards given in the spring and fall of 2010. The few awards will reflect the winning states’ populations (for example, should Wyoming win, it will get far less than California). Education Week does an excellent job providing more details.

As for the substance, the establishment’s fingerprints are all over today’s release. This isn’t all bad. There’s a much greater focus on traditional interventions (such as professional development and training) and the stuff of day-to-day district management (like developing meaningful teacher and principal evaluation systems). But there are also several instances of system-speak—like “multiple measures” in teacher evaluations and the indecipherable “local instructional improvements systems”—that, if taken too far, could compromise reform.

Unquestionably, there are things to like. It still embraces invaluable reforms like data use, charter schools, and efforts to improve teaching and school leaders. Fans of national standards will also be pleased. The department also deserves credit for properly emphasizing the need to have school districts not just promise, but contractually commit, to executing reforms. In several places, the document smartly reflects the importance of getting lots of stakeholders to buy into reform at the local level (no doubt a result of Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s experience in Chicago).

But there are also a number of things that brought me pause. There’s greater leeway for districts to use less aggressive interventions with failing schools; states are invited to argue that district-run faux charters substitute for a real charter law; and a charter law with a cap can garner points.

Regrettably, in a number of areas it appears the department consciously avoided confronting major establishment players. A section on performance pay, tenure reform, and teacher dismissals fails to even reference union contracts. In most places, you simply can’t address any of these issues without fundamentally altering collective bargaining agreements. Similarly, while attention is given to expanding the best teacher preparation programs, there’s no mention of addressing the lowest-performing of these institutions. And finally, despite telling states for more than six months that unwisely spending earlier American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars would disqualify them for RTT grants, the scoring rubric only allots 1 percent of its possible points—5 of 500—to this matter, meaning those who defied Duncan are all but absolved (in fairness, the department thinks this issue is embedded in other places, but I don’t see it).

Maybe these changes are the natural consequence of moving from an aspirational draft document to the messy business of politics and policy making. Maybe such concessions are the price you pay for other reforms.

Nevertheless, the real race starts now. States will begin crafting applications today, and early next year, the peer reviewers and department will sit down to evaluate proposals.

A couple months ago, it looked like reform would have a huge head start at the gun. Because of the changes in the interim, that no longer seems to be the case. But I’m still confident that reform gets a strong jump out of the blocks.

It looks like a major Race to the Top concern may be materializing. I’ve been arguing that there’s a big difference between a change in law and a change in on-the-ground practices. Hence my suggestion that people tone down their enthusiasm about all of the states that have improved state policies to position themselves for Race to the Top funds. One of my hypothesized examples has been a state that improves its charter law but gets no new charters because of district hostility.

Well, a couple months back, Tennessee lifted its charter cap and lots of people celebrated. But according to this article, that might amount for naught as Nashville denied six charter applications this week.

The district says it has nothing against charters, and that it just wants these applicants to improve their submissions. Maybe that’s so. If it is, I applaud the district for being a conscientious charter authorizer.

But in other places this has been a tried and true cover story for a system’s opposition to new public schools they don’t control. So let’s see what happens next.

In the meantime, what we’ve seen so far here is a perfect reminder that all of the Race to the Top–generated “reform” legislation is the beginning of the story, not the end.

Yesterday, the Department of Education released the application and supporting documents for the second (and final) installment of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

This $50 billion program is helping states and districts backfill their education budget holes (it was meant to generate reform too, but that isn’t happening).

As documented here and here, the program was written in such a way that states were allowed to access their first batches of funding without spelling out how they would use it to push reform. In April, Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to governors explaining they could receive their second batches without demonstrating that they had accomplished any reform goals.

So yesterday’s documents held little promise: we knew that billions more dollars were going to be released irrespective of states’ achievements or intentions.

With that said, the department did what it could to squeeze some good out of the situation. In order to get these funds, states have to provide some important information to the department. No, the administration can’t use what it learns to withhold funds, but at least Duncan’s team and the rest of us will gain more insight into the state of reform in the states.

Some of the reporting requirements include:

•    How states are evaluating teachers and principals and using that information in retention, compensation, etc.
•    How far states have come in building robust data systems on student performance
•    High school graduate rates, college-going rates, and college-persistence rates
•    How states are addressing their lowest-performing schools
•    How many charter schools are allowed under law, how many are operating, and how many have closed in recent years and for what reasons

I give the department credit for making the most of this situation, but we all should be very disappointed. This $50 billion was supposed to plug budget holes and drive reform. Instead it plugged budget holes and purchased some interesting information. That’s a steep price for a bit of data.

Was it just me, or did anyone else find it troubling to read the Washington Post story “Democrats round up health bill votes” on Saturday and stumble upon this sentence: “Rep. Jason Altmire, a second-term Democrat who represents a blue-collar district in suburban Pittsburgh, was the focus of an aggressive lobbying effort Friday, taking calls from Obama, Pelosi and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, as well as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.”

I understand the calls from Emanuel and Sebelius, but why exactly was the secretary of Education leaning on a Pittsburgh congressman to vote for the healthcare bill? What did he say? “I’m a former basketball player and school chief from Chicago, and I’m hoping you’ll vote for the bill.” Could $100 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds and the enticement of $5 billion about to given away in Race to the Top and i3 funds gives the secretary leverage, especially if he promises to ensure that this or that proposal gets “full and careful consideration”? Of course, such inducements would be a huge no-no—but the behavior merits the question. And what’s a little wink-wink between friends anyway, eh?

Altmire noted, “They’re pulling out all the stops,” but why exactly was the overexposed secretary of Education working the phones for a healthcare bill? The secretary is struggling with incredibly ambitious timelines for Race to the Top and i3; the push for “common standards”; concerns that ARRA dollars have not been used as intended (and have not delivered any transformation); and efforts to quietly nationalize the funding of higher education and the development of online instruction … and yet still has time to dispatch invaluable counsel on healthcare reform? An impressive display of time management, I guess. But just what is the secretary saying, or offering? This is when federal slush funds, even those with generally laudable goals (as with Race to the Top and i3), start to beg questions.

Do I think that the secretary of Education was doing something illicit? I doubt it. After all, he seems like an honorable enough guy. That said, the situation raises the same concern as the fawning press release and instructional materials the Department of Education issued regarding President Obama’s back-to-school address to students in September. Given the vast resources the feds are spending and the extraordinary opportunity to use discretionary funds to drive state and local policy, all of it justified by the pleas of “crisis,” it’s critical that the administration strive to avoid the appearance of impropriety or the sense that officials are using our money to serve their ends. Once again, the administration has not only failed to clear a high bar on this count, but has displayed little inclination to recognize even a low one.

About $75 billion of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act education funding was distributed via formula-based programs. This meant there were no grant competitions—states and districts got money simply by virtue of having schools and students—so there were few if any mechanisms to direct how these dollars would be used. However, Education Secretary Arne Duncan told recipients over and over again that these dollars had to be used for reform as well as job protection.

But initial spending reports are out and, according to Education Week, about 96 percent of these funds have been used for jobs.

So much for reform and stabilization being equal partners.

The news of unemployment’s unexpectedly large jump to 10.3 percent has me shaking my head in sadness and frustration with millions of other Americans. But, as I look deeper into the numbers, it also has me scratching my head in confusion.

In total, 190,000 jobs were lost in September, with big cuts in construction, manufacturing, retail sales, leisure, and transportation. But at the same time, nearly 11,000 jobs were created in education.

Of course, I’m happy that more people have found jobs in at least this industry, but this is hard to explain given some other developments. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has pumped billions of dollars into our schools this year to fill budget gaps. In fact, a recent document from the White House reported that more than half of the jobs created or saved by the stimulus so far were in education.

Various reports suggested that these education jobs were of the “saved” variety. That is, states and districts were planning to cut education jobs but then decided not to when funds started rolling in from the feds. This sense seemed to be substantiated by state and district claims that, while they appreciated this funding, it was insufficient. There have been lots of reports of furlough days, reduced bus routes, cut sports programs, across-the-board reductions, and so forth. Take for instance Hawaii’s recent decision to cut 17 days off this year’s school calendar.

So if all of these activities are getting cut and states and districts are asking for more funds, how were they able to create more than 10,000 additional jobs?

A benefit-of-the-doubt answer is that these are actually just restored jobs. So for example, maybe districts cut 50,000 positions earlier this year when things were at their bleakest, and now that ARRA funds are flowing, they are able to hire back a portion of these employees.

The more cynical explanation is that some places are treating America’s education system as a jobs program. Knowing that so many people are out of work, these systems might be cutting non-personnel line items and creating new jobs with the freed up funds. That wouldn’t necessarily be so good for our students.

I hope it’s the first answer. But all of the evidence showing that our school systems have used virtually their entire stimulus allotment to date on jobs instead of reform has me wondering.

A final note: when ARRA funding runs out and school systems are forced to again rely primarily on state and local resources, these job gains could disappear very quickly.

A huge challenge for the Race to the Top (RTT) program came into stark relief yesterday, but it doesn’t seem like anyone has noticed.

Marking the anniversary of his election, President Obama, with Education Secretary Arne Duncan in tow, visited Wisconsin yesterday to tout this $4.35 billion program. In a very long speech, the president emphasized his administration’s intentions to use the RTT to compel states to get rid of their “data firewalls.” He explained the term and why he’s opposed to them:

It basically says that you can’t factor in the performance of students when you’re evaluating teachers. That is not a good message in terms of accountability. So we said, if you’ve got one of those laws, if you want to compete for these grants you got to get rid of that law.

Secretary Duncan made clear in his Air Force One gaggle with reporters that they were delivering this message in Wisconsin because the state legislature is about to vote on a bill that would repeal the state’s firewall. The administration was there to call attention to the general issue and put some added pressure on legislators.

Many reformers are excited that states’ strong desires to get RTT grants are causing them to change their policies in valuable ways—with regard to firewalls, charter schools, and other matters. But I’ve been acting as part wet blanket and part broken record, repeating that there’s a big difference between changing a law and changing on-the-ground practices.

For example, a state may lift a charter cap, but if districts are the only authorizers and they remain hostile to charters, that policy change may not lead to any new schools.  Similarly, a state may pass a law allowing performance pay for teachers, but local collective bargaining agreements may prohibit compensation being based on anything other than graduate degrees and years of experience.

In the case of Wisconsin, these concerns came to life. According to a local paper, the legislation that precipitated the president’s visit, while allowing student test scores to be used in teacher evaluations, would still prohibit teachers from being disciplined or fired based on this information.

So if Wisconsin passes this law, many in the administration and education reform community will celebrate, “the firewall is down!” But because of the fine print, the new law will do nothing to help remove poor teachers from the classroom.

This is just another example of why those evaluating RTT applications must callously look past bold, shiny state promises and get deeply into the weeds. Unless the reviewers and the Department of Education’s leadership dig into these types of details, the amount of reform we actually see from the Race to the Top could be tragically disappointing.

Late last week, the New York Times reported that the lion’s share of jobs attributable to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) can be found in our public school systems.

Of the 640,239 jobs recipients claimed to have created or saved so far, officials said, more than half—325,000—were in education. Most were teachers’ jobs that states said were saved when stimulus money averted a need for layoffs.

This isn’t completely surprising. In more traditional “work-program” areas, where stimulus funding is designed to start moving dirt or expand an ongoing project, typically new jobs can only follow considerable advance planning and the successful management of tricky implementation issues. The education dollars, on the other hand, were as rudimentary as possible.

The feds merely sent tens of billions of dollars to states and school districts to help them fill in their existing budget holes. So for the most part these jobs aren’t new, and they aren’t contributing new or different things to our education system. These are the jobs that would’ve been there had the recession never happened. Now, this still raises some important concerns (as the looming “cliff problem” suggests), but if you’re primarily interested in unemployment rates, you’ll likely view this part of the ARRA as a success. (Along these lines, it’s worth nothing that the two major teacher union heads were in attendance at Vice President Biden’s announcement event.)

But getting reform out of these education funds will be as difficult as getting jobs was easy. No one yet has the perfect formula for fixing our schools, and there are lots of reasons to believe that even if they did, the law’s education reform programs will be rerouted toward jobs.

So here are two predictions. First, we’re extremely unlikely to see a similar White House event touting the reform successes of ARRA education funding. Second, if there is such an event, the evidence provided will be almost entirely of the “input” variety. That is, there will be much discussion of how much money was spent and which initiatives were launched. What will be missing are “outputs,” data showing that thanks to the stimulus, our school systems are different and better and our students are learning more.