In this article from the upcoming edition of Education Next, I wrote, “When state [Race to the Top] proposals hit Arne Duncan’s desk, the secretary [of education] must become the toughest schoolmarm in America.” Unfortunately, on Thursday we got the first sense of his grading curve, and it turns out he gives lots of As.
As I wrote on Flypaper, I’m very disappointed with the department’s decision to name 16 states RTT finalists (Wall Street Journal coverage here, New York Times here ). A number of these states have glaring deficiencies that would make them unable to get over a medium bar, much less the “very, very high bar” that Secretary Duncan said he would set.
In a number of tweets, the department’s press team explained the long list by saying that there was a natural break in the scoring (around 400 points of 500) and reassured that the bar is still high, that very few of these finalists will win. I want to believe them; I really do.
But they didn’t have to take 16 states just because there was a natural break there. They could have selected only the top two or even five. That would’ve sent the right signal: That the administration is serious about big reforms; no average proposals—go back to the drawing boards and come back with a better product in the second and final phase. Sixteen—considerably more than my imagined worst-case scenario—sends precisely the wrong message: That a moderate effort is good enough.
Take for example New York, which wrangled over reform legislation until the very last day before deciding just hours before the filing deadline that they were going to reject the department’s priorities. That is, the state publicly considered and rejected RTT reforms. Yet New York is a finalist. Kentucky doesn’t even have a charter law, one of the most important reforms of the day, but they too made the finals.
Many good teachers grade tough early in the semester. It sets high expectations and shows students that they must up their effort. I had hoped that Secretary Duncan would follow that line of thinking and reject most if not all applications, telling states that they could and must do better. “We’ll see you in the next round,” I envisioned him saying, “You simply didn’t meet the mark this time.” Instead, he advanced nearly one in three proposals. Not only will this instill an unjustified sense of complacency in those chosen, it shows the rest of the states that the bar wasn’t all that high.