Post a comment about the budget cuts at your school on our interactive comment map. more »
GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
MARGIN NOTES
March 4, 2010
Surprise! New York a finalist in Race to the Top contest
In a shocker, New York State has been named a finalist in the federal competition for Race to the Top funds, which could net the state up to $700 million.
The announcement comes as a welcome surprise to state officials, who have said they weren’t holding out hope that New York would make the cut after legislators failed to allow more charter schools to open. Observers had also speculated that a legal barrier to using student test scores as a factor in teacher tenure decisions could also reduce the state’s chances.
Making the shortlist means New York earned enough points on Race to the Top’s formula to put it in the top 16 of 41 applicants. But the state still isn’t guaranteed any of the grant funds: State officials still have to present their reform plans to federal reviewers in two weeks. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will make the final call on winners next month.
The other state finalists are Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.
-
March 4th, 2010 2:03 pm
Duncan’s selection of the NYS Ed. Dept. as a RttT finalist demonstrates, beyond cavil, that the grant process is purely political. Official audit after audit has shown that federal funds given to NY State Ed. are at high risk of “fraud, waste and misappropriation.” Follow up audits consistently show that State Ed.’s promises to clean up its act are fiction, at best. Other audits and reports show that State Ed.’s numbers re kids passing Regents and other NCLB-mandated exams, graduating and dropping out are unreliable, at best, and intentionally falsified, at worst.
And then there’s the little problem that State Ed.’s RttT application doesn’t actually list any real parents or organizations of parents it consulted before concocting its application. Apparently that doesn’t bother Flunkin Duncan at all.
“Change you can believe in”? I don’t think so. “Politics as usual” is more precise.
When kids cheat and commit outright fraud in school, they get punished. When adults running large systems do so, … not! At least not if they are in NYS and have powerful politicians pushing to keep federal grant pork gushing dollar goodies in their direction.
-
March 4th, 2010 4:02 pm
No California. Can that be correct? I would guess the active lobbying by the State teachers’ union there to kill the application might have had something to do with it. I still think NY being left in the final cut is just political. NY won’t get any money, or perhaps some small scraps thrown to NYC
-
March 4th, 2010 4:04 pm
What’s with the eastern bias? Aside from Louisiana, only Colorado is west of the Mississippi. Does that strike anyone else as odd?
I don’t know about NYS, Dee, it would seem that other states like Texas and California could rustle up quite a lobby but didn’t get pushed through. Maybe Obama just has a soft spot for us.
-
March 4th, 2010 7:04 pm
Geez. Another evidence that Chicago style politics have been upgraded to the Federal level, and to be honest, if this is the kind of policies that these so called educators push and preach, one needs to wonder how much “real” educating they are expecting people to do across America.
-
March 4th, 2010 7:10 pm
Actually, giving NYSED RttT money, or money from any new federal initiative, probably violates a few dozen USDOE and federal government rules. Indeed, Chicago-style politics rules!
Duncan’s tenure heading up the Chicago Public Schools has been seriously discredited by others, so there’s no particular reason for me to go into the mess he made at length. Suffice it to say that the professional disability community has had nothing good to say about his term there and warned everyone else in advance … and they wuz rite!
We can expect spin, smoke, mirrors, flash and everything else a p.r. flack can dream up and circulate. What this means for the kids is quite another story. And not one likely to be endearing to those who care about how children actually do in school.
The more things change …
-
March 4th, 2010 7:45 pm
Whoa!
Now I know that corruption and dirty politics is coming out of the woodwork!! How, please tell me, how NYS went from not qualified to being one of the finalist? There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.
Let’s see. In January NYS did not qualify for the RttT money. Last week the chancellor sent an email to the principals suggesting that they use students’ test scores (grades 3-8) as one of the evaluation item in granting teachers tenure. Today NYS is a RttT finalist. Hmmm.
-
March 4th, 2010 8:34 pm
Wow! This is right up there with Milli Vanilli winning the Grammy!
-
March 5th, 2010 7:07 pm
Pogue,
I almost brought Milli Vanilli’s album. And now people are buying into the NYS RttT being a finalist. Read my lips. I’m not lipsnycing!
-
March 5th, 2010 8:11 pm
Let’s call Duncan’s program by what it really is: The Race to the Bottom.
He is taking tax money for unproven reforms. He wants more accountability for teachers, but not for himself. He did a poor job in Chicago, and was not held accountable for it. Now he is doing a poor job as the secretary of education but is not being held accountable for it.
Leave a Reply
Mapping the Budget Cuts
Copyright Notice
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
9 Comments
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack