After the first round Race to the Top winners were announced this week, speculation began as to what that means for Maine. Maine has been seen as a weak contender by many in the sate, except the DOE, for some time. As the deadline for the second round approaches, are we any closer to those coveted funds? What can we learn from the first round scores about our current Race to the Top (RttT) legislation and Maine Education Association involvement in the process? Can we actually win any funds or is this a futile effort?
Deleware and Tennessee took the prize in the first RttT round. Both states took aggressive measures to reach the top. As Matt Stone points out, both states demonstrated significant union and school board buy-in on reform measures. So far, the MEA has been less then enthusiastic to some of Maine’s RttT legislation (more on that later). That is not all. Both states had some form of teacher assessment based on student data. Delaware’s system requires students to show “satisfactory” levels of growth to be “effective”. Two or three years in a row of being ineffective and you’re out, regardless of tenure. Tennessee has a similar system, based on data collected since 1992.
Maine’s bill regarding this, LD 1799, will “establish models for evaluation of the professional performance of teachers and principals employed in a school administrative unit within the State.” The law states that this would be optional, not mandatory. It is unlikely this is the “aggressive” reform RttT judges will be looking for. Though giving districts the option base teacher evals on student progress or not may have been a move to gain support from the MEA. The MEA has consistently spoken out against these sorts of assessments. In an “alert”, the MEA urged members to stop this LD 1799 by contacting their legislators. The MEA also issued a PDF of talking points against LD 1799, including the bold move of labeling it a “dumb idea”. The PDF does make the valid point that most of the RttT applicants will receive nothing. A roll call has been ordered on LD 1799. All three of Maine’s, including LD 1800 (common-core standards) and LD 1801 (innovative schools), are “emergency” legislation and “Governor’s” bills.
Delaware and Tennessee also have rigorous turnaround programs. Low-performing schools are identified, followed by various interventions or turnaround methods, culminating in school closure in Delaware’s case or the school being run directly by the state DOE in Tennessee’s case. Maine has a similar system in place based on federal criteria. The DOE released a list of the 10 “persistently lowest-achieving schools” on March 9th. These schools are eligible for grant assistance provided they adopt a federally required method of intervention. Turning a school into a charter is off the table. This leaves schools with three choices. A school can institute a “transformation”. This requires the school to fire the principal and implement reforms such as extending learning time or adding professional development time. One could argue these reforms should be considered whether a school is low performing or not. The other two reforms would face serious opposition from any community. One requires firing the principal and half the staff. The other would close the school entirely.
These turnaround reforms are what caused all the trouble in Central Falls,RI a few weeks ago. There could be similar problems here in Maine. First, why half the staff? Half seems like an arbitrary amount. Leaving aside what makes a quality teacher, it is possible a good teacher could get cut and more likely a poor teacher would remain. Second, many of the low-achieving schools have said “no thank you” to the grant funding. Schools in Livermore Falls, Sumner, and Houlton have rejected $12 million in grants and adopting turnaround reforms in favor of going it alone.
Ignoring the fact that both Delaware and Tennessee have charter programs, more on the Kenntucky/Maine RttT link here, everything I’ve mentioned points to one major problem. Maine has a lack of broad support for its RttT reforms. States that ranked high by the RttT reviewers had union support levels of 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 93%, and 31% (Illinois). Disregarding Illinois, for every 10% points of union support, a state moved up one space in the rankings. Delaware had 100% support of teachers and school districts. Tennessee had 100% of districts and 93% of teachers unions. “We’ve worked very collaboratively with our governor here,” said Diane Donohue, the president of the Delaware teachers union. “Much of the reform efforts are hinged on defining student growth. It’s crucial that the union be part of that conversation.” Two states with strong plans, Florida and Louisiana, missed out on RttT funds because they were lacking district support, union support, or both.
While the MEA may not support Maine’s RttT efforts, local union affiliates have yet to weigh in. No matter how strong the DOE may think it’s application is, without strong support we’re out of the running. Is Maine “well-positioned for federal Race to the Top educational funding”? Comparatively weak reforms coupled with lukewarm support at best means we aren’t. “In Delaware, we don’t have to choose between consensus and being bold,” said Governor Jack Markell. “You get the best of both worlds.” Maine can have the best of both worlds too. If the DOE, MEA, and districts are willing to work for it. When it comes to what made Delaware and Tennessee famous, there is a lack of commitment from either side of the table. The MEA wont budge on performance pay, but at least they stopped referring to it as the “Race to the Top Program“. Innovative schools will be seen as weak in the RttT. Neither side is seeking strong creative reforms. Nobody can get a charter bill through. It’s time to stop tinkering around the edges or work on strong reform and consensus. If we aren’t going to actually try and win this thing, I’d rather move on to something more meaningful.
3/31/10
A big hattip to Brian Hubbell of MDISchools.net for collecting all sorts of articles on education Maine and National.
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