The Washington Post checks the facts in the president's State of the Union address:
?Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon.?
Obama wasn't born yet when Sputnik was launched in 1957 so maybe the details are hazy for him. But the race to the moon was not really on the priority list at the time for the United?certainly not for the Eisenhower administration. A moon landing only became a U.S. priority in 1961 when John F. Kennedy?under the prodding of his vice president, Lyndon Johnson?announced the goal of ?before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.?
?Glenn Kessler
?Race to the Top is the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation. For less than one percent of what we spend on education each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning. These standards were developed, not by Washington, but by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country. And Race to the Top should be the approach we follow this year as we replace No Child Left Behind with a law that is more flexible and focused on what's best for our kids.?
In his speech, President Obama makes expansive claims about the impact of a $4.35 billion grant program known as Race to the Top. That program, which he launched in 2009, is at the core of his education agenda.
Is Race to the Top ?the most meaningful reform? of schools in a generation? That's debatable. Some might argue that the 2002 No Child Left Behind law enacted under President George W. Bush should get the nod. That law required for the first time that public schools test all students in reading and math every year in grades three through eight and once in high school. Parents and teachers across America have strong opinions about all of that standardized testing and what it has done to public education. It marked a huge expansion in assessment and the birth of a culture of school accountability. What is certain is that the Bush-era law set in motion a cascade of actions to close student achievement gaps that the test scores revealed in greater detail than ever before. The law is still reverberating in numerous ways.
Here are some facts on Race to the Top. The Education Department designed the program and funded it with money Congress provided through the 2009 economic stimulus law. States and the District of Columbia were eligible to apply. But there was a catch: the reform plans had to dovetail with a detailed set of criteria established by the Obama administration. The adminstration gave points to states with plans to adopt common academic standards, link teacher evaluation to student achievement, expand quality charter schools, intervene in low-performing schools and other measures that the president supports.
Some critics said the administration's criteria were off-base. They said the administration should have done more to encourage equity in education funding, for instance, or efforts to reduce class size. Other critics said that the program set up an unhealthy dynamic of winners and losers in education funding.
The program's funding level was indeed less than 1 percent of the commonly accepted estimate of about $500 billion spent each year by state, federal and local governments on public education.
All of the Race to the Top funding was awarded last year. About $350 million was set aside to fund the development of tests and assessments. That left $4 billion to fund state reform plans. Winners in a first round of competition were Delaware and Tennessee. Winners in a second round were the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island.
The winners included some surprises, among them Maryland, Ohio and Hawaii. Some analysts suggested that those states had done little to challenge the power of teachers unions. Lousiana and Colorado, among others, were cited as examples of states with bolder plans that were left out of the winner's circle. The bottom line is that there is still strong debate about which states deserved win.
Whether Race to the Top produces meaningful change depends in part on whether states follow through with their plans, which are just getting under way. If they don't, the administration could withhold the money. It is therefore somewhat early to gauge the impact of the awards for the winners.
Even so, the administration contends that a raft of changes to state law occurred because of the contest?in essence, reform by incentive
Some advocates of charter schools caution that the changes spawned by Race to the Top do not amount to a major national policy shift. But the administration is justified in claiming that there has been a flurry of action on charters at the state level?actions that might otherwise not have happened.
It is true that teacher evaluation reform has become a major movement in education. Race to the Top certainly helped encourage states to take significant actions on tenure, evaluation and related issues?actions that might have been politically unthinkable a few years ago. But it was not the only instigator of such actions. Many teachers have long complained that evaluation systems are broken.
Lastly, it is true that Race to the Top helped encourage a state-led movement toward common standards in English language arts and math. It is true that more than 40 states and the District in the past last year have adopted?provisionally or fully?what are now national academic standards. But the standards movement, pushed by governors and state school chiefs, preceded the launch of Race to the Top. And the impact of the new standards will only be measured in years to come after experts assess how much states actually revise curriculum, teacher training and testing to make the benchmarks become an educational reality.
?Nick Anderson
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow