Now or never to sign Race to the Top MOU
A 19-page memorandum of understanding for signing up for Round 2 of Race to the Top went out Monday. District, county offices of education and charter schools will have only until Wednesday to indicate whether they’re in or out.
This time, there will be no coaxing or convincing, with a wink or a nod, that districts can always back out later if they don’t like the terms. This time, the state’s not going all out to build a big tent of participants at the sacrifice of strong commitments. This time, superintendents, local union presidents and presidents of the boards of trustees should sign the dotted line only if they’re prepared to agree to a specific and lengthy set of reforms.
They will include:
- Making sure that an equitable proportion of effective teachers and principals are placed in high poverty and high minority schools, with the use of incentives to attract them there.
- Adding at least one STEM-related career technical program and the number of STEM-related AP or International Baccalaureate courses.
- Adopting and using local data systems to improve instruction and have every teacher trained and capable of using it (in other words, if your district doesn’t already have a data system in place, don’t join);
- Creating a new teacher evaluation system that uses multiple measures to identify student academic growth; at least 30 percent of the annual evaluation will be based on student growth, however defined;
- Establishing a teacher effectiveness rating system, based on teachers’ evaluations, that will give teachers designated as ineffective two consecutive years an additional two years to take advantage of supports and training; those who remain ineffective will be dismissed;
- Having all teachers use formative and interim assessments in addition to end of the year tests
- Agreeing to adopt one of four strategies for schools in the bottom 5 percent of the worst performing schools. These options are close, open as a charter school, hire at least 50 percent of new staff or remake the school using a series of measures that the MOU lists.
There will be at least seven unified school districts – Los Angeles, Fresno, Long Beach San Francisco, Sanger, Clovis and, the newest, Sacramento City – that will sign the MOU; they have led the effort to reapply. Whether all of their unions will join with them, including United Teachers Los Angeles, is the big unanswered question.
Regardless of whether the state can overcome a dismal first round score to qualify for federal money – as much as $700 million – the fact that districts representing at least a million students pledged to take serious actions to significantly improve how they do business is in itself quite remarkable.
John Why is that remarkable? They all signed up in the first round plus many more. The fact that they all signed up without knowing the content of the document they agreed to enforce is from a business perspective strange John
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One of my main concerns with RTTT is the potential expense of adopting common core. So I browsed the RTTT FAQ to see what I could learn about LEAs that don’t sign an MOU. I learned that only 50% of the funds have to be allocated to the “participating” LEAs. The remaining 50% is considered state money. One of the suggested uses for the state funds is defraying the costs of adopting new standards. Not that the state funds will cover the whole cost of common core, but at least the other LEAs could get some funding. If the state does adopt common core and wins a RTTT grant it will be interesting to see how much money the involved districts get.
FROM THE RTTT FAQ:
“K-10 How can a State accommodate its non-participating LEAs who still need to do some work in, for example, transitioning to new standards?
There are some aspects of a Race to the Top plan that States can only fulfill with the involvement of all or almost all of their LEAs. LEAs that do not sign MOUs but are nonetheless involved in some Race to the Top-related activities (e.g., transitioning to a common set of K-12 standards) are called ―involved LEAs.‖ States do not need to submit information on their involved LEAs as part of their applications, and States will not be evaluated based on their involved LEAs. Involved LEAs may be signed up by the State at any time and by any method that the State chooses. Involved LEAs are not eligible to receive a share of the funds that States must subgrant to LEAs under section 14006(c) of the ARRA. However, States may provide funding to involved LEAs from the remaining 50 percent of funds or from other sources.”
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