A teacher writes to ask how test scores might be used wisely if his district gets Race to the Top funding.
My advice: RTTT funding will cost your district far more than it receives from the federal government. Your district will have to increase class sizes, lay off teachers, and cut programs to meet all the demands of the mandates. Some fine teachers will get bad ratings because they teach kids with disabilities or are ELL. The ratings will bounce around from year to year.
Just say no.
Here is the comment:
“I suspect this conversation is timely for many of us: my district is considering applying for a Race to the Top grant (and I’m quite worried about it). I’d love to hear reactions to this idea: since the grant application requires some “significant” incorporation of test scores into the evaluation process (which is probably just a bad idea, but is required) do any of you think that it might be possible to incorporate them in a “formative” phase? What if teachers got “test score feedback” early in the process, and administrators worked with teachers to use those scores to plan goals, etc. Then the actual “summative” evaluation (also required by the grant) was done using a system of standards and rubrics, similar to the system this teacher describes above (our district uses the Danielson model). I bet there are many things wrong with this idea, but it’s the only thing I can come up with that might (might) satisfy the requirements of the grant that doesn’t completely horrify me.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The conditions associated with RTTT are onerous and represent a terrible trap hard to get out of; it will mean huge costs not just in terms of dollars, but also instructional time and damage to your schools and students. I agree with Diane’s assessment, echoing Nancy Reagan on drugs: Just say no.
I was informed by my district that public schools in NY state still have to comply with RTTT and state RTTT-based guidelines whether or not they take RTTT funds.
Don’t Do It! You’ve sold your soul to the devil if you do.
Diane’s right–This is a Faustian bargain if ever there was one.
Florida has embraced RttT and the results are onerous, at best, and completely invalidate teachers’ professional attributes and students’ learning opportunities. RttT should be more aptly named TttT (Teach to the Test).
That being said, we in the education community do not know what will be on the test, exactly, but we DO know that the tests are age- and development inappropriate.
In my learned opinion, the only positive attribute of RttT is, perhaps, the intent, which may have been pure at its inception but has been consistently and ignobly prostituted, resulting in the excruciatingly detrimental reality of abasing our profession and maiming our students’ academic and social tutelage.
Beware of Landmines.
I reluctantly signed on knowing our district would benefit almost nothing financially but thinking that $700 million dollars for the state might actually benefit other districts in financial need for enhanced (quality) evaluation systems, professional development, and even local data management. I foolishly assumed that $700 million would help the State get its data systems cleaned up with prudent use of data and disseminate funds to regions for provide professional development and collective curriculum work. HA!
I keep asking and no one answers but: Where is the COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS of $700 MILLION DOLLARS. They want us to add value. HA! They siphon this money off to consultants and Pearson and the vendor of the month and for what.
(and I have to plug my blog on Value SUBTRACTED Measures as they not only waste rttt $, they refuse to deal with State decisions that will force cutting actually important expenditures like… kindergarten) http://thinkingaboutschools-jhstlny.blogspot.com/
Let’s assume achievement goes up across the state 10%. Is that worth $70 million per percentage point? And – the kicker is – in the first year they changed the cut scores. In the second year they implemented the system, partially. In the third year they changed the tests and are telling us the scores will go down. And, they still haven’t decided if they’ll use the VAM or not (and it’s MARCH). In the fourth year they (may) go to online tests. So – there’s NO WAY to determine if any of this made / makes any difference if you care about test scores.
$700 million? 700 districts? That’s easy math. $1 million for every district to enhance professional learning and pedagogy and curriculum and collaboration and data teams and . . . (and that’s before even distributing it equitably).
Landmines
The most lucid critique I’ve read. Kudos!
In NY, most admins say the RTTT monies promised rarely hit ten percent of the cost to implement. Not to mention the strings attached. Run– don’t walk– away!
Our district received $17,000 in RttT $. We’ve spent at least 5 times that implementing all the “reforms”.
p.s.
Yes, one of the Fellows actually said, “It’s a Good Time to Be A Consultant”
http://www.nyssba.org/news/2013/03/08/on-board-online-march-11-2013/it-s-a-good-time-to-be-a-consultant/
Maybe one positive outcome of RTTT is that it has brought to a head the feverish festering ulcer that has been infecting education policy since NCLB legislation was signed into law more than a decade ago.
Betsy, you are right. Race to the Top has made things even worse than NCLB and encouraged resistance.
There is never any accountability or ROI in education – NEVER. People have been totally brainwashed to think that even if we spend $1 million dollars, if it makes one child more successful it is worth it. Too bad “success” has such a narrow definition.
The other component of RTTT is that it is hugely dedicated to data collection and relies on the American Reinvestment Recovery Act for the longitudinal database shell to hold it all- on teachers, on students, on administrators – and it will all eventually be made public, misused, hacked, sold, etc.and probably connected to the medical records databases that are being created. It will be a national database that will most like be misused to the benefit of the powers in control. Local, State, Federal dollars sucked out of our pockets to create the machine that will be used to suppress our freedoms going forward.
Anyone connected to a school system will eventually lose any shred of digital privacy while the Public School Institution continues to implode – this is the real “civil rights” issue going on! Where is the ACLU on this one?
We are living in a time that will eventually be recognized as a tragic moment in our history. My child has named it the “Cold ‘Civil War.”
We have to make the public aware that this program costs more than it delivers in funding. We seem to get that when it comes to funding things like trains and ObamaCare, but why don’t they get it when it comes to Race to the Top? When unions defeat these grants, the media always brands it as “Union Costs District/State $X Million Grant.” There has to be a way for us to change the narrative.
Accepting Race to the Top money is exchanging student & teacher data for dollars. Don’t do it.
Thanks for posting this, Diane. I’m the person who originally posted the quote Diane used (and full disclosure: I’m a district administrator guy right now – not in the classroom). I appreciate everyone’s comments and I think your advice is wise. Unfortunately the decision got made at the top (I bet that’s common, right?) so it’s left to others to figure out how to get it done in humane ways (I sure hope that’s possible). I’m obviously worried about it, but we have good folks working on the application, so maybe we’ll be able to figure out how to satisfy some of the requirements of the grant application without violating what we know to be right for students and teachers. The struggle continues.
Sadly it is not supposed to be a struggle…they sell it as “support”.
They are liars and shysters. You cannot follow their requirements and not hurt/abuse children and teachers. That is not possible.
This info was previously posted and it’s important:
Click to access brief_8_education.pdf
Federal Mandates on Local Education: Costs and Consequences – Yes, It’s a Race, but is it in the Right Direction?
Discussion Brief – Fall 2012
Kenneth Mitchell, Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents
ABsolutely not!
1. The name says it all.RACE to the top. In a RACe, someone wins. Everyone else loses.
2. The $$$ is TEMPORARY, while the commintments and demands are not.
3. The compliance requirements will cost more than the extra funding will ever be.
4. States and districts are hiring ‘compliance’ directors/officers, etc to keep uo with all this. It’s worse than the tax code.
5, Testing! Need I say more?