Archive for July, 2010
A VERY BAD IDEA
The use of all caps is a plague in current society. All caps should only be reserved for times of extreme danger or impending doom. For example, HURRICANE COMING! ZOMBIES ATTACKING! These are appropriate instances when a high alert and the need for immediate action should be conveyed.
In education, these instances don’t happen all that often. I can think of a few examples of immediate crisis I’ve been involved in (the wildfires, swine flu, very angry and large emotionally unstable students) and a couple of examples of truly terrifyingly bad education policy (beyond the norm).
Today, we have an example of such a policy proposal. Today, Congressman Obey put forward an amendment that would strip Race to the Top, the Teacher Incentive Fund and the Charter Schools grant of hundreds of millions to fund an Edujobs bill. THIS IS A BAD IDEA.
The changes that have occurred in CA as a result of the Race to the Top competition in such a short time have been remarkable. RTTT has been a godsend to efforts to reform our education system to close the achievement gaps that plague the vast majority of students in our state –Latino and African-American students and students in poverty. The recent effort on the second round of Race to the Top brought together some of the best education minds in the state including Chris Steinhauser of Long Beach Unified and Mike Hanson of Fresno Unified. This district-led effort produced a template for reform that has the real potential to transform California’s education system in the long-term by helping to ensure that the best teachers and leaders are placed with the students that need them the most. While we are concerned about the depth of the layoffs in our state as a result of an ongoing budget crisis, we cannot shortchange these long-term possibilities for reform based on a CA budget crisis that is now entering its fourth year and is as much a product of a broken finance system as of our current economic crisis. These opportunities for reform are so few and far between that WE CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE THIS ONE.
