The states unlucky enough to “win” Race to the Top funding are arriving at a startling conclusion: Race to the Top mandates cost more than the money that was awarded to the state and the districts.
Ken Mitchell, a superintendent in Rockland County, New York, did the math.
Mitchell determined that school districts in his county are spending far more than they receive as they try to implement the mandates. When you consider that Governor Cuomo enacted rigid tax caps on every public school district in the state, it means that costs (for Race to the Top) are soaring at the same time that the district cannot raise new sources of revenue. The result: layoffs, program cuts, larger class sizes.
Mitchell writes that in six districts in his county, the cost of RTTT implementation will be $11 million, but the revenues will be only $400,000. This is a deficit of more than $10 million that must be covered by district funds. Where will the money come from?
When you consider that there is no research base to support the initiatives demanded by the Race to the Top, this is, as he puts it, “a grand and costly experiment that has the potential to take public education in the wrong direction…” That is putting it politely.
The word is getting out. Race to the Top has no research base. Race to the Top is a burden on the states that “won” the money.
It will be a burden on the districts that have the misfortune to “win” funding.
The United Teachers of Los Angeles were wise to refuse to sign on to their district’s application.
If they won, the district would soon by laying off teachers to pay for consultants and experimental programs of no value.
Race to the Top makes guinea pigs of the nation’s public schools and their pupils.
I will vote for Obama despite this terrible program.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Layoffs, program cuts, larger class sizes are features, not bugs.
YES! In NJ there is a similar story with the Bi-partisan new tenure law (TEACHNJ).
One Jersey district is hiring four administrators to be executive principals to help implement the new provisions of the principal evalution requirements. Consultants too are cleaning up and some of them are Papa BROAD disciples!
Unfunded mandates are devouring Ed budgets across the state. Yet the sheep here are afraid to speak up.
You are not likely to put any NJ administrators in your hall of game.
Whoops, s/b hall of fame.
Every new mandate seems to open new district-level positions.
ABSOLUTELY SO TRUE!!
OUR KIDS ARE NOT GETTING ANY MONEY..NOR ARE THEY GETTING ANY HELP FROM THIS TOTAL CHAOTIC CURRICULUM!! NONE!!
I’ve been saying “winning” RTTT would end being a net loss and provide no benefits to students all along. RTTT part 2 is even worse. Schools will have to write education plans for EVERY student! Schools already waste tremendous resources writing EPs for special education students. Imagine the time and money that will be wasted writing EPs for every student. You can read more about RTTT round 2 on my blog kafkateach.wordpress.com.
We here in CT have an evaluation system looming. The head of the CAPSS…superintendents’ association was quoted as saying districts will have to lay off teachers to hire evaluators to evaluate teachers to weed out bad teachers and get rid of more teachers.
Hartford is in the pilot of the system right now. They hired several suits, about 15, just to evaluate. Two have already left; nine did not pass the evaluation training and must retake the assessment. The administration won’t tell the teachers who didn’t pass. So what are they doing in the meantime…conducting pretend of practice evaluations?
So we cut teachers to evaluate teachers to get rid of teachers all while improving teaching and learning for our students. Class size increases, curriculum options decrease, money is siphoned off for non classroom purposes and this is reform.
Did the legislators even know what they were voting for?
“So we cut teachers to evaluate teachers to get rid of teachers all while improving teaching and learning for our students. Class size increases, curriculum options decrease, money is siphoned off for non classroom purposes and this is reform.”
Good observation, and depressing all at once.
This is the worst year for any student in this state.
Students are being used for Guinea Pigs for a test and another test and another test.
Education is all about a TEST..
Get your Testing Degree….not your Teaching Degree….
The people making these decisions have never in their lives been in a classroom…Never..Never
They probably relied on ‘consultants’ and ‘experts’. That’s OK though, parents can vote by moving (out of state or by home-schooling) and the end results of this grand experiment can be taken care of by the state and taxpayers. I just hope criminal prosecutions are on the horizon in the not too distant future. They should be charged with fraud and malpractice. They can just ship them to another bone-headed concept that most politicians seem to love: the private prison. You can place them in the general population. Perhaps they may run into a few former students who attended their school/educational system. Oh sweet justice!
Wow. Still voting for Obama despite this horrific educational experiment? I just spent a work day doing RttT. Even though it was the end of the quarter and grades, report cards, and PEPs were due. What a huge waste of time. One of our days we spent building things out of spaghetti, marshmellows, and string and watching 30 second Disney/Pixar video clips that were referred to as “authentic text.” No wonder so many of us are bailing.
Karen Hunt-Maddry, proud mom of Clint, Magnolia, TX; Jeff, Cary; and Kristina, Cary.
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well, and if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.” George Orwell “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.” Billy Currington
The Seattle Education Association has our monthly meetings on the 2nd Monday of every month. On Thurs, 4 Oct., at the end of the day, an agenda come from SEA leadership with a Race To The Trash application – to be voted on at the Monday 8 Oct meeting. Oh yeah – and about that 22 page agreement of edu-jargon legalese … um … Walker Brown Scott Mitt Newt Perry Rick Palin Rmoney !!!!
We had an election in our union in March 2012 and 75% of the appx. 4800 members didn’t vote … how do you spell ‘fed up’?
Welcome to Gate$-Ill-Vain-Ia, Great State of Wishy-Warshy, Pacified Northwest. (pst! want a KEY to the ‘leadership’ washroom? call your back door midnight sell outs “pragmatic” and “collaborative” !!! )
rmm
The economics force firing teachers and replacing them with computer-based software for drilling kids in much larger class sizes.
The beneficiaries are Rocketship Educaiton Charter’s software for “blended learning,” K-12 Inc., and similar corporations.
This is what “personalization” means to Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and hedge fund managers.
I will vote for Jill Stein but if I lived in a swing state I might vote for Obama, gagging the whole time due to RTTT betrayals. Dems will continue to mimic the Repub/®eform platform until they suffer big losses as a result. Public education is choosing between slow death (Dems) or quick death (Rep). We need a party with real public education on their agenda.
Yes…
Linda–Face it–the dems will not “suffer big losses due to rttt”.That is pure fantasy. Arne Dujncan and RTTT are popular among both parties. That is something that could help gain votes for Obama, not lose them. Let’s face reality.
We need to do a better job of educating the general public about this. Then politicians will follow suit. We need to educate parents about how harmful this is for their children, and get them to lobby the politicians, to opt out of their chidlren taking the tests (“What if they gave a test and nobody came?”), to run for school board opposed to this crap, and to file major class action lawsuits about it.
Your non-voting for Obama does not do a thing to stop rttt, it only helps Romney, who would likely be worse.
Thanks for getting this information out there. I don’t think most people pay attention to the actual cost of accepting a few incoming federal dollars. I would like to point out that even states that do not “win” the RTTT funds have to expend the money because they have to be doing the “reforms” (they are actually deforms) in order to win the federal funding. I live in Washington State and we haven’t seen a dime for the K-12 RTTT funds (we did get some for Pre-K–to create an assessment and a computer tracking program–those do NOTHING to improve education) yet we are implementing all the mandates so we MIGHT get some federal funding in the future.
BTW, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Obama. He’s been a huge disappointment–especially in education. That was a problem he inherited that he could have actually fixed but, instead, he chose to destroy it. I wrote in Matt Damon who seems to actually understand education issues.
I know, personally about the horror stories concerning the incredible, insurmountable paperwork being demanded of teachers in Denver Public Schools. It’s beyond absurd. The millions demanded to implement this bomb were set up to do some nefarious goals: first, enrich the corporations that are the only beneficiaries of these brain-dead plans, make terminating older or targeted teachers a turkey shoot. NO TEACHER COULD DO ALL THE SUPERFLUOUS COMPUTER WORK, PLANS THAT ARE SO BIZARRELY INTRICATE, WHICH OF COURSE, TAKES TIME FROM THE STUDENTS, AND HAS THE VULTURE, “EVALUATING TEAMS” TRULY TERRORIZE FACULTIES! I would say, that no one with the brains of bug could EVER think such draconian measures advance education! It sets teachers up for failure, takes $ from needed educational supplies and, I feel accomplishes the covert goal of picking and choosing what targeted teachers the administrators want to terminate, based on salary, race or mere jealousy/personal vendetta. I know because I was ruthlessly, unfairly one of the above mentioned victims, totally due to the age & jealousy/personal vendetta false attacks, based on nothing about my years of outstanding teaching, academic scores and “passionate” dedication! Education has become a true snake pit!
All this paperwork and ancillary crap that teachers must do and endure will insure that most new teachers will be one, if not two and done. The rest of us will be struggling to survive and keep our jobs.
If the math doesn’t work, where are the brave supers and school boards that will stand up and say NO! Non-violent protest needs to be used to stop the madness. If a majority of the 700 NY school districts refused to comply with the demands of RttT, King, Duncan, Cuomo and Coleman would be stopped. Educators promise to “do no harm.” Is it malpractice to continue this charade?
Yes, it is malpractice and completely unethical.
Your comment is the best summation of what is so destructive in public education, and most important, who are the “leaders” Federal and locale that perpetuate this insanity on schools across the nation! Education “MALPRACTICE,” most foul! We need to protest nationally and make these blind leaders of the blind have accountability for the damage and ruin they have wrecked!
The word is getting out about the reality of RttT, thanks to many folks who stand up and speak the truth, even it it means saying no to federal dollars. The future of our public school system is at stake. Let’s not sell the heart and soul of our local school systems for “30 pieces of RttT silver”.
I’m very proud of our union leader who recently took our concerns to MD Governor O’Malley. Watch the video …
oops “… even IF it means …”
I hope he listens. I have yet to receive a response regarding his proposal for Marylanders to pay for Pepco upgrades that Pepco should pay for. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment. He hails from Montgomery County, where Jerry Weast and the Board of Ed said NO to RttT!
Ken Mitchell was asst. superintendent for curriculum in the district where I am now. He was and is a champion educator. I am perplexed at the denial of obvious data on the part of our politicians regarding RTTT in this insanely data-driven time – and I hope the tide turns before it is too late. I was going to vote for Jill Stein but will vote for Obama because I understand that Romney would be worse and I think the popular vote will matter even if I live in a “blue” state. Thank you for your tireless voice, for this forum, for continuing to lend dignity to an increasingly insulted profession.
RttT: The gift that gives and takes and takes and takes. I’m surprised that more states and districts didn’t do a cost-benefit analysis. Aren’t some of these new technocratic leaders well versed in business “best-practices?” I guess not. Hopefully, when the public wakes up to this scam and sham these guys will be voted out, discredited, and/or terminated. Until then, buckle up. It’s going to be a heck of a ride and a costly one at that. The cost will not only be financial, but intellectual and competitive too.
Now, all is not lost. Perhaps the states can ‘refund’ the money for RttT when they find out and realize the actual cost. And I’m sure there will be candidates in some states where they elect Directors/Secretaries of Education where the acceptance of these funds can be used against them. Now that’s change I can believe in.
Race to the Top is worse than No Child Left Behind
“No School Let Standing”
Race to the Top then Topple with the Avalanche..It has arrived..
Parents…only you can help this situation.
When all the RTTT nonsense first started, I did the calculations. Based on the round 1 dollars promised and the estimated number of students in this state, I found that the funding would amount to around $600 per student. Keep in mind that the requirements would be binding on the entire state, not simply the disctricts that signed on to the application. Add to that the promised funding is temporary while the mandates are not. It just doesn’t add up. Financially, it’s the equivalent ofpaying large fees based on the promise of a job somewhere, sometime in the future. Last I checked, that’s called a scam.
Now, go check employment listings and you’ll see jobs for RTTT compliance personnel. So, guess where the money will REALLY be spent? That’s right, administration, NOT classrooms.
southside teacher you are so very right..
The RttT people are so humorous..
They ask for feedback from teachers on their numerous-numerous-numerous-documents…A friend of mine gave so much feedback..only to discover that the RttT Big Money People sent all of the comments directly to the Big Officials in the County..
News to the RttT people….You are playing Politics and I can assure you will lose your jobs in the near future as the parents of the students you are so hurting are not going to stand for this nonsense and this Political Power you think you possess..
Furthermore..the person you reported to the county officials left to pursue other careers..
He was very tired of Covering the so-called Real-World Subject matter ..instead of Teaching the stuff.
These programs are fluffed-up pork designed to line the pockets of a few well connected folks who will reap millions once again- No Child left behind was actually no penny left behind when it came to redistributing Americas tax dollars to a few well connected jokes and their related companies who were already pre-determined when the legislation was written with the main goal of lining their pockets. Fraud consisting of the custom legislation written to fit certain well connected individuals like say Neil Bush , the one they try to keep hidden away, all to way down the ladder to smaller fish looking to take advantage of the free-for-all like a local Hudson County Public School Supervisor S.F. who hands over contracts (& renews annually) to his father’s employer without any disclosure- blatant conflict of interest – The system is abused from top to bottom when it comes to anyone who can profit due to their position- but that’s what education reform is all about in America- yapping about education improvements while quietly cramming gobs of money in a pocket connected to your own. If these programs actually worked we would have stopped at the 1st one & still be using it BUT of course the only part that ACTUALLY works in the broken system is the spreading money to your friends & benefactors