Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Is there *any* evidence that Duncan’s “Race to the Top” will improve education?

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Have similar programs been tried and succeeded (or failed)?

I’d like to write a little article about this, and am wondering if there’s any evidence to support our dropping a program that’s been so successful. Is Duncan’s program an experiment, or based on rigorous testing?

Thanks!

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  2. Here’s something for you. A brief by researcher William Mathis, titled “The ‘Common Core’ Standards Initiative: An Effective Reform Tool?”

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    p>Here’s the abstract:

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    The Obama administration advocates for education standards designed to make all high school graduates “college- and career-ready.” To achieve this end, the administration is exerting pressure on states to adopt content standards, known as the “common core,” being developed by the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers (NGA/CCSSO). The administration has, for example, called for federal Title I aid to be withheld from states that do not adopt these or comparable standards. To date, 48 states are at least tentatively participating in the standards effort, thus suggesting that the result might become de facto national standards.

    Standards advocates argue that common standards are necessary for keeping the nation competitive in a global economy. But this brief points out that research does not support this oft-expressed rationale. No studies support a true causal relationship between national standards and economic competitiveness, and at the most superficial level we know that nations with centralized standards generally tend to perform no better (or worse) on international tests than those without. Further, research shows that national economic competitiveness is influenced far more by economic decisions than by test scores.

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    p>But I would also question your premise that our state standards have been an unmitigated success. Successful at what? It’s not enough to repeat the oft-cited sound bite that we are No. 1 on NAEP. Massachusetts was at or near the top on NAEP before state standards and the high-stakes MCAS. What we had before and still have now are gaps in opportunity and achievement, gaps that are influenced by poverty, disability and lack of English language proficiency.

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    p>A “race to the top” seems like a terrible way to address ongoing, widespread and growing inequities that drive poor school achievement and perpetuate our society of haves and have nots. Races produce a few winners, mostly losers. Is that the way we want to go?

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    p>Lisa Guisbond
    Citizens for Public Schools
    http://www.citizensforpublicsc…

    • The coalition includes NAACP, the Urban League, the Schott Foundation, the Rainbow PUSH coalition and others. They’ve released a framework for education reform (as reported by Valerie Strauss in today’s Washington Post) that is polite but strongly critical of Obama/Duncan’s approach.

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      p>Here’s an excerpt:

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      The Race to the Top Fund and similar strategies for awarding federal education funding will ultimately leave states competing with states, parents competing with parents, and students competing with other students….. By emphasizing competitive incentives in this economic climate, the majority of low-income and minority students will be left behind and, as a result, the United States will be left behind as a global leader.

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      p>Lisa

      • Kevin Welner, professor of education policy and law at the University of Colorado at Boulder and director of the Education and the Public Interest Center, submitted the following comment on the potential value (or lack thereof) of Common Core standards:

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        The new Common Core standards might very well be an improvement on the standards that currently exist in many or even most states. But as the Mathis policy brief points out, there is little or no reason to believe that this standards reform will result in benefits for students. In fact, if we continue along our current path, it may end up harming them. While good, clear, sensible standards can provide helpful guidance for teachers, recent history shows how the Dr. Jekyll of “standards-based reform” quickly becomes the Mr. Hyde of “standards-based high-stakes testing.” And we’ve seen that merely mandating higher achievement is a very different thing than providing the resources to teachers and students needed for them to meet those demands.

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        p>The rest is here. Worth reading.  

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