Photo courtesy of AP

Seven delayed thoughts on Race to the Top so far:

1. At the very least, Race to the Top’s competition model is clever and has potential to work. I’ll explain more later this month in my report in the May edition of The American Spectator‘s print edition. Let’s just say if George W. Bush embraced this approach, the No Child Left Behind Act– which successfully shed light on gamesmanship by states and school districts, exposed the reality that even suburban districts are mediocre in academic quality, and revealed the nation’s dropout crisis in stark terms — would have been even more effective.
2. The two states selected out of Round 1 — Delaware and Tennessee — aren’t the worst of possible choices. Tennessee actually took some huge steps such as eliminating most of its restrictions on the growth of charter schools and allow for the use of standardized tests in evaluating newly-hired teachers for tenure.
3. But this means that strong school reform states may not gain funding because they won’t gain support from NEA and AFT affiliates. The good news is that the Obama administration (led by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan) didn’t select undeserving states that happened to be politically vulnerable from the Democratic National Committee perspective (Illinois for one). But in rejecting Florida (the leading school reform and teacher quality reform state in the nation) in the final leg and dismissing Indiana out of hand, the administration signals it prefers systemic consensus over strong reform.
4. For school reform to actually work, it means aggressively taking on the status quo. Race to the Top, in selecting Tennessee and Delaware, for the moment, seems to lean towards muddle and half-measures. Not a good thing. If school reform is to work, it will only come after reformers admit that sometimes consensus won’t happen. It means digging in, taking on systems of compensation and instruction that are failures, and upsetting a few constituencies (who may deserve being afflicted) along the way.
5. The hope lies in the possible Round III. If Obama gets his wish, reform-minded school districts will be able to submit applications. It will be hard for the administration to reject D.C. (home to the biggest experiment in teacher quality reform and evaluation) or a New York City (the most reform-minded district in the nation), then argue that it supports school reform. The administration must walk the walk on this.
6. Meanwhile Race to the Top could be so much more. But in order for this to happen, the administration must make parental engagement a much-bigger part of the game; this means encouraging Parent Trigger measures and even engaging parent-centered grassroots organizations into the competition. Allowing for winning school districts to become educational enterprise zones — an approach similar to the Reagan-era reform measures for local cities to spur economic growth — would also help. This means exempting them from the state laws governing teacher-district labor activity — including collective bargaining, tenure and dismissal — that often hinder their reform efforts.
7. And make school choice an even higher priority in Race. This would likely mean embracing voucher programs, and requiring districts and states to allow students from all schools — not just the worst districts — to attend any school within a district or state. The Obama administration certainly won’t consider this. But they should. And then go into action.