Kevin Huffman, winner of the WaPo's America's Next Great Pundit contest and a VP at TFA, has a looking-ahead themed piece on Saturday's opinion page. One part stuck out in particular (my emphasis):
Next, we need policies explicitly driven by transparent data on student achievement and designed to foster more research and development in schools and districts. The $4 billion??Race to the Top Fund, a program in which states compete for stimulus-funded grant money, is an excellent start; Congress should make it an annual grant program.
But let's be clear: It is unfortunate that our schools need such a program. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has credited Race to the Top with giving states the incentive to change laws that banned the use of student test results in teacher assessments and capped the number of new charter schools. As our test scores trail those of other industrialized nations, it is self-defeating to tolerate policies that impede assessment or inhibit innovation.
This is an interesting idea and one that I'll have to take more time to think about. But some preliminary thoughts. RTTT has made states make changes they probably would not have made otherwise--on legislative and policy fronts. Some of these changes, like raising charter caps and the like, are things that states should have been doing anyway, but we can't fault RTTT with starting with the basics. Sometimes that's the best launching pad. It would be short-sighted to say that RTTT hasn't done any good. Just how much remains to be seen.
But I'm a bit worried about the chances that RTTT will live up to its alleged goals. First, we saw the Department make a few important steps backwards when they released the updated version of the application. Duncan and his team are obviously responding to pressure from many conflicting fronts, not the least of which are the unions and education schools, but it was a bit disheartening to see the Dept step down. Huffman's idea for an annual RTTT might be a good one, but you won't get me on board until we actually see who gets the money and how it's implemented. (Translation: I'm holding off judgment on this front.)
I'm also worried about the more general power of the feds to affect change through a competition like this. This isn't a new worry or one sparked specifically by Huffman's suggestions, but if we've learned nothing from myriad federal grant programs is that federal money is a blunt instrument. Dare I repeat that long standing criticism of federal heavy-handedness: You can make the states do something, but you can't make them do it well. (NCLB anyone?)
Then there's the annual part. RTTT is different from other grant programs because (theoretically) not every state is going to get in on the cash. But it still suffers from the threat of getting locked into the system.The hardest part of making RTTT an annual gig would be keeping this competition actually competitive. I share the same worries as others do that once the money runs out, whether it be stimulus- or RTTT-funded, states are going to be left high and dry with reforms they can no longer afford. But I'm not sure locking in yet more money to keep those programs going is the right solution, especially if the point of RTTT is to innovate reform, not maintain the status quo.
--Stafford Palmieri
