Peter Greene noticed in his scan of reports from Arne Duncan that Duncan singled out the super stars of his Race to the Top.
Most surprising of all was that North Carolina won a gold star for improving the teaching profession.
To call this startling is an understatement.
Don’t take my word for it: Read what Duke University Professor Helen Ladd and former New York Times education editor Edward Fiske wrote about the appalling attacks on teachers and on public education in recent years in North Carolina.
Teachers are bailing out of North Carolina because salaries are so low and have not increased since 2008.
The legislature has passed law after law stripping teachers of any and all rights and privileges.
Teachers can no longer get a raise for earning an advanced degree (just shows you what the legislature thinks of education).
The legislature killed off its successful North Carolina Teaching Fellows, which produced well-prepared teachers who made a career of teaching, yet found $5-6 million to bring in Teach for America, guaranteed not to stay in teaching.
North Carolina has one of the worst climates for teachers in the United States, and it has gotten progressively worse over the past three years since hard-right Republicans took control of the legislature and the governorship.
What exactly did Arne find admirable about teaching conditions in North Carolina?
Was he misinformed or does he approve of the war against teachers by the state’s extremists in the legislature and its governor?
The bottom line is that Race to the Top was a waste of $5 billion that might have been used for the arts, for reducing class sizes in needy schools, for opening health clinics, for doing what was actually needed by students and teachers and communities. It could have been a national competition to reward the districts that produced actionable plans for racial integration. Instead, it piled on more testing, demoralized teachers and principals, added tons of paperwork, and rewarded consultants, entrepreneurs, and snake-oil salesmen.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Indiana also doesn’t reward continued ed.
#PhonyBennett
#PrincePence
This is what the state reported to the DOE, so maybe this is where all the happy talk comes from:
“As one might expect given NC’s focus on ensuring that every child has a great teacher and every school has a great principal, the RttT plan contains a variety of important initiatives designed to help every educator improve his or her practice and to improve both the supply and equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals. The key components of this work are enhancing the statewide Educator Evaluation System, and providing a continuum of programs and supports to ensure that well-prepared teachers and principals are in place across the state, particularly in our most challenged schools and districts.”
They included a nice plug for TFA:
“NC has expanded its existing teacher recruitment and licensure programs to provide special added support to the lowest-achieving districts and schools. Specifically, the NC State Board of Education (SBE) has increased the number of Teach for America (TFA) teachers in the State, established the NC Teachers Corps (NCTC) program (modeled after TFA), and developed a new Induction Support Program for novice teachers. Together these initiatives aim to increase the supply of quality teachers and provide support and training for the newest teachers in the State’s lowest-achieving districts and schools.
In the 2012-13, school year, TFA accomplished the following:
Worked with 88 second year corps members and 128 first year corps members (216 in total) in 11 LEAs and five charter schools across northeastern NC
Completed recruitment of its new cohort, inducting 185 corps members to teach in low achieving schools in the 2013-14 school year”
https://www.rtt-apr.us/state/north-carolina/2012-2013/caer
Philadelphia, last summer, took away some union rights, including pay increases for advanced degrees.
Also, the amount of time spent on this 25% law is atrocious. . .meetings about what it means, surveys about what we think, more meetings to find out where we are with it. . .so much time and energy over $500 and a sorting out that seems about as reliable as the sorting hat at Hogwarts. And the Read to Achieve law is no different. The expectations get modified all the time. . .which is good, because it was way off to begin with, but even with revisions of where we are with which test and which cutoff, there is the disclaimer that this could all change by May.
The one good thing I read about the most recent update on the RTA is that parents have to request the final test. . .it will not be given to everyone (I think that’s the deal). I know that was a goal of June Atkinson (to not have a heavy-weight test while also tracking progress the whole time), so maybe she pushed that through. Who knows.
In leadership team meetings I hear teachers say that they don’t mind once a month PLCs about data, but that they don’t have time to analyze the data. Most businesses, upon which these new models that have been projected onto schools are based, have data analysts. This new system has simply created more work for teachers, who do not have data analysts and who now don’t even have assistants (in 4th grade, and 3rd has only minimal assistant help). A third grade lead teacher told me that, actually, none of the tests (of which there are too many) would be nearly as burdensome as they are if assistants had not been cut. So when you combine the Dems’ lust for standardizing and the Republican (Libertarian) lust for austerity, you get this very stressful combination where budgets are balanced on the backs of teachers in every possible way (not just their pay. . .I rarely even hear teachers talk about that. . .but mostly in the amount of work piled on, some of which is not helpful. . .like an EOG score that never enlightens the teacher about what their students learned specifically because all they get back is a score, but yet it carries great weight for both teacher and school.
A survey came from a Duke grad student about what teachers think of 12 months of pay, with more opportunities for staff development and so forth in the summer. I think that is a good idea.
I also applaud innovative programs like language immersion, which are being launched despite all the testing requirements (even though the recommendations and requests are being sent to Raleigh that all this testing doesn’t fit in with the language immersion approach). I also know of a group of parents at an Experiential Learning magnet who are annoyed that the school can no longer really carry out their mission as an Experiential learning school because of all the mandates (and teachers who have come in from other states and countries who were trained specifically for Experiential Learning are leaving).
Arne’s lens is a peculiar one. Perhaps it’s easier to just have one set of “standards” for everything and go around looking to stamp that mark on things so you can feel good about your work. In his case, it’s CCSS, testing, VAM and a competitive environment for teachers rather than a collaborative one. . .(but wait! I thought “21st Century skills” were about collaborating because nobody ever had to collaborate until January 1, 2000). Or something like that.
What’s up is down, what’s down is up. I just hope to enlighten some children with music this day and each day.
I think one of the most damaging things that has happened is the fact that conservatives in North Carolina and elsewhere can point to Duncan and Obama as supporting their agenda. It’s just devastating in terms of having any real debate over any of this stuff, because it’s “bipartisan!” so therefore “excellent!”
Here’s the Locke Foundation, a far Right group in NC, pointing out that “Democrats agree with McCrory” on higher ed funding:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/daily_journal/display.html?id=10737
I can’t point to a single difference between Kasich and Duncan on public ed in Ohio other than vouchers, and, really, in this state, vouchers are the least of our problems re: ed reform.
It’s the same sort of herd effect I saw with deregulating the financial sector. A lot of people knew it was reckless and nuts and would do long term damage and we would eventually pay for it, but it was “bipartisan!” and “all the smart and serious DC people agree!” and everyone was going to WIN and no one was going to LOSE, so they were ignored.
I just hate these mob scenes. I have never seen one of them end well.
“Bipartisan” doesn’t = “smart” or “wise” or “prudent” anymore than “nonprofit” = “public”.
I see it as bipartisan dividing up of the public school carcass. Maybe the carcass will regenerate. . .those of us who do believe in the Resurrection can at least put that stamp of hope on things. ?? Or something like a butterfly metamorphosis. We are in the cocoon stage, I think.
Anyone really wanting to understand where we are in terms of NC history should read THE MAKING OF A SOUTHERN DEMOCRACY by Tom Eamon. UNC Press. Excellent book.
In fact, you will learn that the threat of the closing of public schools was a very real factor during integration. I am glad that we are no longer segregated, but I am not so sure segregation was handled well during the 1960s and that perhaps we are still sorting that out, without direct talk of it.
I mean that integration was handled well (not segregation).
not handled well. . .ah, typing too fast.
I know how this will play politically in Ohio, because it’s an election year.
The far Right will trumpet that “funding public education” (RttT) is just “throwing money at the problem” (the problem is always public schools) and our standardized test scores haven’t gotten better, so it’s time for another wave of privatization and vouchers.
Public schools can’t win in this R-D mind-meld. It’s rigged. They’re political orphans.
On the GOP side we have passionate advocates for privatized schools, and on the Democratic side we have “agnostics” and “relinquishers”. It was rigged from the start.
“Agnostics” and “relinquishers” make lousy advocates, and that’s why we’ve seen public schools weakened and undermined at every turn.
Politicians have to declare victory with whatever educational policy they push. In my time as a teacher, this is the first time the policy leader almost seems to embrace the possibility of schools, teachers, and students failing (or should I say “failing”?).