Posted on 03/04/2010 12:51:28 PM PST by Panzerlied
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia survived the first cut Thursday in the Obama administration's unprecedented $4 billion school reform contest.
This Story 15 states, D.C. make first cut in Race to the Top school reform contest R.I. district may reverse firing of high school teachers See our Higher Ed page for college news & admission advice at washingtonpost.com/higher-ed Analysts pointed to some surprises among the finalists, including New York, Ohio and Kentucky. It was also notable that the most populous state, California, missed the cut even though the state's legislature approved a significant school-improvement plan.
Federal officials say the competition has already spurred innovation in public education through the lure of funding in difficult fiscal times, driving several states to lift limits on charter schools, overhaul antiquated teacher evaluation systems and take steps toward performance pay.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The winner will be the first school to graduate 35% of seniors. I think the average in Los Angeles is 30%....so that will be a big jump and almost impossible.
Heck, just give every student all “A” grades, and hire the unemployed to take any proficiency exams for them.
This is $4.35 billion they took from the $787 billion stimulus to throw at schools. For all the talk about opening up to charter schools, this is about teacher’s unions getting a few bil from the stimulus. Note that in this program 10 points are awarded simply for making “education funding a priority.”
80% of your local property taxes go to the public schools you live near. Could they make it any more of a “priority?”
Red states hit hardest? Well except RI.
No, liberal states are hit the hardest on this. I was a city council nominee and primary winner in Edison, NJ a city of 100,000 souls. When I studied the budget there I was stunned to see that it was like that of a third-world nation (this analogy means it was HUGE for one town) and that over 80% went to three junky, old worn down public schools. When I looked deeper I saw where it was going: to administrators in the school board who dwelt in some ugly building off the Turnpike making six figures and sitting on HUGE pensions.
This is where the money goes and your very liberal states are more entrenched in this kind of corruption, although sure...it exists in Louisiana, Texas, et al.
Look at the pension packages of these people, teachers included, and you’ll understand why it cost $14,000 taxpayer dollars per student per school year in many areas.
See http://dese.mo.gov/rt3/ for the official Missouri page, and http://www.missourisovereigntyproject.com/rttt.html for the Missouri Sovereignty Project page. (I appologize if the links don't work - I don't know how to do that.)
Better yet, check it out for yourself in your own home state. IMO, RTTT is NOT a good thing for education, our children, our grandchildren, or our country!
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