Earlier this year, Dropout Nation discussed the potential of the latest round of the federal Race to the Top initiative in directly spurring systemic reform within traditional districts. Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced that 61 districts were chosen as finalists for the district-focused round of the competitive grant program. And a few things can be immediately gleaned from the selections so far.
The first: Some of the most-successful reform-oriented districts didn’t get selected. Although New York City and Boston are two of the finalists, neither Houston nor Charlotte-Mecklenberg County made the first cut. Meanwhile districts with questionable bona fides such as the Fulton County district in Georgia (which forced the high-performing Fulton Science Academy charter school to become a private school, and is still working on overhauling its operations), and the Charleston County district in South Carolina make it to the next round. Expect more questions from those reformers who have held Race to the Top in more-skeptical regard than those who support it.
The second? Some rural districts did make the cut. This includes the North Central Educational Service District in Washington State (which provides special education and other services to 29 districts in the Evergreen State), and Cooperative Education Service Agency 10 in Wisconsin (which serves such rural districts as Flambeau as well as Eau Claire). But one can argue that not enough rural districts made the cut. But this isn’t surprising. Rural districts haven’t been the focus of systemic reform efforts, even though they increasingly share many of the same challenges of urban and suburban counterparts. Expect outfits representing rural districts to play a stronger role in shaping future Race to the Top district-level efforts, either by forming coalitions similar to that for the civil rights-oriented reformers such as the Coalition for High School Equity, or by teaming up with reformers such as the Alliance for Excellent Education (which has put some focus on rural districts) to red line rules governing future rounds of Race to the Top and other competitive grants.
Third item of note: The presence of KIPP and Green Dot among the finalists is rather heartening (as is that of Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority, which is sparring with Detroit’s school board — now empowered to behave badly after voters chose earlier this year to kibosh the Wolverine State’s emergency manager law — over whether schools currently in the reform district can stay there). At the same time, it would have been great to see other charter school outfits such as Rocketship Education play a part in this round. Given that charter operators are playing the same roles as districts on a national basis, it may be time for the Obama administration to launch a Race to the Top that focuses exclusively on charters.
Finally, the Obama administration can’t make up its mind as to whether or not it will insist on reform-minded school leaders getting the blessing of affiliates of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers as a condition of Race to the Top consideration. On one hand, the administration’s snub of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s proposal, submitted in spite of its battle with the notoriously bellicose AFT affiliate there, would make this seem so. But then there is the fact that New York City has been selected as a finalist in spite of its current sparring with the AFT branch, the nation’s largest teachers’ union local.
This can get interesting. Certainly the Obama administration wants to throw a bone or two to the NEA and AFT, and wants to keep up the centrist Democrat party line that reformers can work with unions to transform teaching and curricula. So expect U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and fellow centrist Democrats to keep pointing to the new collective bargaining truck between Newark’s school system and the AFT local there — with its performance pay plan and new objective student data-driven teacher evaluation system — as an example of how reform-minded districts and teachers’ unions can collaborate on reform.
But as seen in L.A., Chicago, and in New York City, there is more incentive for NEA and AFT leaders to continue do the bidding of the Baby Boomers in the rank-and-file who benefit the most from traditional teacher compensation deals, than to craft deals that essentially lead them to losing more influence. More importantly, as seen in Chicago, where AFT local boss Karen Lewis had trouble persuading members to suspend its strike (and still weren’t fully happy with the deal they forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to accept), it is especially hard for union bosses to control those members they have stirred up for action.
Simply put: It makes no sense for the Obama administration to keep pushing for union-district cooperation at the expense of advancing strong reforms.
A list of the finalists is below.
ARIZONA
Cartwright Elementary School District
Peoria Unified School District
ARKANSAS
Springdale School District
CALIFORNIA
Animo Leadership Charter High School
Galt Joint Union School District
Lindsay Unified School District
New Haven Unified School District
CONNECTICUT
Bridgeport Public Schools
Hartford Public Schools
COLORADO
Mapleton Public Schools
St. Vrain Valley Schools
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
KIPP DC
FLORIDA
Broward County School Board
Charlotte County School Board
Manatee County School Board
Miami-Dade County School Board
Seminole County Public Schools
GEORGIA
Fulton County Board of Education
Haralson County School System
Morgan County Charter School System
Rockdale County Public Schools
INDIANA
Metropolitan School District of Warren Township
KENTUCKY
Bourbon County Schools
Green River Regional Educational Cooperative
Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative
LOUISIANA
Ascension Parish School System
MARYLAND
Baltimore City Public Schools
Baltimore County Board of Education
MASSCHUSETTS
Boston Public Schools
MICHIGAN
Education Achievement Authority of Michigan
MISSOURI
Jefferson City Public Schools
Maryville R-11 School District
St. Louis Board of Education
NEVADA
Carson City School District
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Nashua School District
NEW JERSEY
Neptune Township School District
The Newark Public Schools
NEW YORK
New York City Public Schools
Middletown City School District
NORTH CAROLINA
Guilford County Schools
Iredell-Statesville Schools
OHIO
Cleveland Municipal School District
Maysville Local School District
Reynoldsburg City School District
OREGON
McMinnville School District #40
PENNSYLVANIA
The School District of Philadelphia
SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston County School District
TENNESSEE
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools
TEXAS
Aubrey Independent School District
Dallas Independent School District
Galveston ISD
Harmony Science Academy (Harmony Public Schools)
Idea Public Schools
Peak Preparatory – Uplift Education
Region 5 Education Service Center
UTAH
Ogden City School District
Salt Lake City School District
WASHINGTON
North Central Educational Service District 171
Puget Sound Educational Service District
Vancouver Public Schools
WISCONSIN
Cooperative Education Service Agency 10