It’s not nice to call the President a liar
By Jim StergiosDecember 23rd, 2009
The Lowell Sun reported a week or so back that
Teachers Union President Paul Georges decried what he called “lies” from the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank, that linked charter-school funding to the state’s ability to qualify for Race to the Top funds.
“We do not need a bill to qualify for the money,” Georges said. “Massachusetts is in the top tier of two or three states.”
I am sure Mr. Georges is a nice man and is not a liar. That said, I would suggest better reading materials than MTA talking points. Fact is, with states across the country making hard reforms, Massachusetts cannot simply live in the past and expect its crown of laurels to remain in tact.
As we noted to legislators on Monday (here and here), from May onward, the president and the US Secretary of Education have been very clear and very consistent in calling for the lifting of charter caps, whether in June:
“We are fighting this on a state by state battle, that’s the battleground. Places like Rhode Island that are
thinking about under-funding charters are obviously going to put themselves at a huge competitive
disadvantage going forward. So we don’t think that’s a smart thing for them to do, and we’re going to
make that very, very clear.”
Or July:
“States that don’t have charter laws or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools will jeopardize their applications under the Race to the Top fund,” Duncan told reporters last month. “Simply put, they put themselves at a competitive disadvantage for the largest pool of discretionary dollars states have ever had access to.”
Or December:
“I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of progress and reform we’ve seen already, before submitting a dime… The amount of progress, the amount of change we’ve already seen — 48 states working on common standards, lots of charter school restrictions going away.
Yes, that’s December 2009. Mr. Georges and Massachusetts will need to wake from their slumber.
Entry Filed under: Education, News
3 Comments Add your own
1. Stephen Eide | December 28th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I agree with the spirit of this post but not the details. First, you give other states too much credit. While it is true that RTTT has stimulated legislation in other states, those legislatures are under the same political pressures as in MA and the substance of those instances of “progress and reform” merits serious scrutiny. Andrew Smarick at AEI has written about RTTT’s potential to lead to “Trojan horse applications”: insincere proposals that promise reform but really just seek more stimulus money to shore up the status quo. Such grant applications will contain big-sounding policy promises whose fine print reveals to be not-so-big, or which will be scrapped as soon as the RTTT $ is no longer an issue. It is hard to overstate the ability of local constituencies to frustrate even the best funded federal attempts at K-12 reform. Second, Secretary Duncan has not been as clear as you imply on what needs to be done vis-à-vis charters to get the $. When the final RTTT guidelines came out in early November, the same effect was revealed as when our legislature’s “Education Reform Act of 2009” came out of committee: the direct influence of teachers’ unions on the policy/legislative process. As I understand it, it is not, technically, necessary to have truly independent charters to win RTTT $. I believe it’s okay to have Horace Mann-style charters as long as they are sufficiently “innovative.” (Think about how undistinguished MA’s charter school record would be if all we ever had were Horace Manns.) Forget the issue of restrictive caps-has Duncan said that the states which don’t have charter laws at all have no hope? Bear in mind that charter policy is only one part of the RTTT application, only 40 of a total 500 points. Several policy areas (teacher policy, standards and assessments, use of data, and turnarounds) are all, individually, worth more points than charter policy. Even demonstrating local buy-in to the state’s proposal is given more points than charter schools.
I think the debate about whether or not we are doing what Sec. Duncan wants us to do is confusing. Massachusetts should just do what’s right, which is also the simplest thing: raise the cap in low-performing districts, as Gov Patrick originally proposed.
2. Jim Stergios | January 2nd, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Hi Stephen: There is no doubt that Sec. Duncan’s call to remove caps on charters has had an impact. In RI, the House Finance Committee turned down funding for new Mayoral Academies in May, but one day after Sec. Duncan spoke out about the Fin Cte action, the House as a whole approved funding. TN raised its charter caps and IN extended its charter legislation all as a result of this federal leveraging.
On other state reforms, it is much foggier. Like the “innovation” schools segment of the ed bill in MA, where we are not sure it will work, many other states are trying out stuff that could simply be hard or impossible to implement. Or states could simply make a show of reform without substance. That is why we at Pioneer, while we support other reforms, are largely focused on charter schools. It’s also why my post was about Sec Duncan’s work to advance charters. There the discussion is much clearer. He has advanced charters, and they do work.
3. Jim Stergios | January 7th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Stephen: Also, forgot to mention cap lifts in Michigan, Illinois, maybe Massachusetts (we will see once we unpack the details of the mess in the House, and then conference), and perhaps next week in New York.
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