With the firing of the starting pistol for applying to the federal Race to the Top competition, California’s odds of winning, already low because of a lack of direction and leadership, probably grew slimmer.

Race to the Top’s four pillars of reform haven’t changed. But the feds’ priorities, as outlined in a detailed rating system, have shifted  to California’s disadvantage. And other states have already moved purposefully while California has spun its wheels for months.

Those spearheading Race to the Top on behalf of the governor and superintendent of  public instruction have said that the state would focus on one priority, turning the lowest achieving schools around. California certainly needs to do that; Sen. Gloria Romero’s SB 5X-1 last week, which the state Senate passed last week, would give the state more authority in that area.

But, based on a 500-point system, transforming the worst schools, with a maximum of 50 points, and improving the use of data – California’s other strength, with 47 possible points – are minor compared with 138 possible points for improving teacher and principal effectiveness. State officials had viewed that priority gingerly, because of opposition by the California Teachers Association to using test scores as a basis for paying teachers. Now that the revised criteria should allay the union’s worst fears, perhaps more districts will step forward. But time is short.

The new criteria also demand what the state so obviously lacks: an overall state strategy and commitment to reform.

On Thursday, in issuing the final criteria for the $4.3 billion program, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan started the two-month period for states to apply. He isn’t backing down from insisting on using hard test data in decisions on tenure, retention, dismissal and pay, but the guidelines make clear that  districts should use multiple measures, not one test, in evaluating principals and teachers. The new guidelines also provide assurance that school districts should lead the effort, which should tamp down some of the rhetoric that Race to the Top is a top-down effort from Washington to impose merit pay.

Even Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, praised the Department of Education for figuring out “a way to strike a balance between what is needed to get systemwide improvement for kids and schools, and how to measure that.”

In sessions around the state last week, State Deputy Superintendent Rick Miller and Kathryn Radtkey-Gaither, undersecretary of education for the governor, suggested ideas the state was considering: more money for BTSA, the state support program for new teachers, and the creation of a training institute for urban principals. But there’s so much more that the state could do to attract  gifted college students, particularly in science and math, into teaching, to improve training at the state’s schools of education, to lure good teachers to  low-performing schools and to evaluate them better. (A new report by The New Teachers Project – How Bold is “Bold”?   outlines possibilities.)

The new criteria also demand what the state so obviously lacks: an overall state strategy and commitment to reform. In their listening tour, Miller and Radtkey-Gaither tossed out discrete elements of a plan, but nowhere are there guiding principles. Their bosses, Gov. Schwarzenegger and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell have offered no cohesive approach.

Schwarzenegger has goaded the Legislature to pass laws to make the state more competitive, and it did so, in part, by removing the barrier preventing the use of a new statewide student data base for teacher evaluations. But legislators, in turn, should ask O’Connell, Schwarzenegger and State Board of Education Ted Mitchell: to what end?

The irony is that California has had a blueprint for reform for two years, in the form of the Stanford-led academic studies Getting Down to Facts and the recommendations of the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Education Excellence. Mitchell chaired that committee. Schwarzenegger disowned the findings because they called for more state spending on education or would have required state mandates. But some of the studies and findings, particularly those involving alternative teaching programs and improving low-achieving schools, could be enacted with Race to the Top funds.

Until now, it’s been a question of chicken and egg (though mostly chicken).  The state has been waiting for districts to come forward with their plans, while districts used the excuse of waiting for Duncan’s final criteria. Now that the guidelines do give districts more flexibility to turn around the worst schools — beyond closing them, bringing in charters or hiring a completely new staff – perhaps some large urban districts will sign an agreement with the state, and California’s application will gain respectability.

But the stark reality is that, with a mid-January deadline looming, the state has no plan, and no district has yet to step forward.

That’s not to say that California should give up on the first round of funding, and focus instead on the June 1 deadline for a second round. To be seriously considered for a chance at  $700 million (a larger potential award for large states than previously indicated), California should enter the first round and have the judges critique its proposal.

Legislators, districts and state leaders should be addressing the priorities of Race to the Top anyway, federal money or not.