In Part 1 of this week’s discussion of the Christina Board of Education’s Workshop on the Delaware application for “Race to the Top” funds we looked at Dr. Lillian Lowery’s connections to billionaire progressive Eli Broad. We also discussed how that connection to Eli Broad led to her advanced knowledge of the “Race to the Top” program and enabled her to assist Gov. Jack Markell in creating an education plan that would push the State’s education system in the direction of the goals of the program.
As we discussed in Part 1, the “Race to the Top” program is a means to an end. Dr. Lowery was trained and instructed in these means during her time in Broad Superintendents Academy. Dr. Marcia Lyles and Dr. Joseph Wise, current and former heads of the Christina School District respectively are also graduates of the BSA. In fact, according to a 2006 article on Slate, Eli Broad “plans to virtually take over the Delaware school system in 2007, pending approval from that state's legislature." He backed the winning slate of candidates for the local board of education in 1999 and helped hire the new superintendent.” It may have taken 2 years longer than expected but it seems that he accomplished his mission though Eli Broad is not alone in his educational pursuits. Along the way Eli Broad has joined forces with another billionaire progressive, Bill Gates.
In 2006, the pair along with their wives Melinda Gates and Edyth Broad teamed up to found “Stand Up” which advocated educational reform. In 2007 the pair molded “Stand Up” into a new “bi-partisan” group called “Strong American Schools”. The new group set specific goals for educational reform:
1.) Agreeing on American education standards
2.) Providing effective teachers in every classroom
3.) Giving students more time and support for learning
The group advocated for the creation of rigorous national standards, an increased focus on charter schools, merit based pay for teachers, longer school days and years and a more comprehensive and effective testing model. All of these components have come together in the plans put forward both by Arne Duncan and Dr. Lillian Lowery. In fact, the “Race to the Top” program seems to be a carbon copy of the Broad/Gates model for education reform.
Dr. Lowery opened her presentation by discussing the “Scope of Work” that would need to be covered by the state and the school districts in order to meet the Markell administrations education reform goals which just happened to be exactly in line with the “Race to the Top” plan put forth by Arne Duncan. Throughout the presentation she would refer to what the State would do with its portion of the “Race to the Top” funds and what the school districts would have to do with theirs. She also made it clear that larger districts with more overall funding would receive fewer state subsidies out of the “Race to the Top” funds. While she briefly mentioned that there would be goals set by the “Race to the Top” program that were outside of those outlined by the Markell plan, it was apparent that Dr. Lowery was supremely confident that Dr. Lyles would be able to bring the Christina school board in line and that this workshop was a formality in many ways.
She opened the Scope of Work by defining what the “Race to the Top” program called for.
1.) The adoption of rigorous standards that will adequately prepare students for both college and the workplace as well as to compete in the global economy. Dr. Lowery pointed out that 48 state education departments (including Delaware’s) had agreed to consider adopting national standards for the educational curriculum. This would in turn not only affect public schools but also charter, homeschoolers and semi private schools who must meet basic statewide standards.
2.) Building data systems that measure student growth and success and that can be used to inform teachers and administrators about how they can improve instruction. Dr. Lowery told us that Delaware is one of only eight states in the country that currently has a data system capable of tracking this information effectively.
3.) Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals and shifting them to where they are needed most. While Dr. Lowery is leaving this up to the districts to manage, DEDOE (Delaware Department of Education) is creating some infrastructure and guidance systems to assist the local districts with this. Also, the “Race to the Top” funding is meant to help pay extra bonuses to highly effective teachers who work in Title 1 schools.
4.) Turn around lowest-achieving schools. Dr. Lowery ensured the district once again that it would retain immediate control over this aspect but that DEDOE would reserve the right to step in if the district failed to turn the school around.
She discussed the process that would ensue. The State first needs the school boards to sign on to agree to adhere to these “Race to the Top” program standards (most of which the Markell administration would demand of the school boards anyway) and sign on to the “Memorandum of Understanding”. Dr. Lowery stated that the district MUST buy-in upfront in order to receive monies under the “Race to the Top” program. When asked specifically about this, Dr. Lowery reiterated that the district must “buy-in” up front and that if for some reason the district did not choose to continue to adhere to ALL of the Race to the Top policies, that the districts money would be withdrawn and returned to the state to be redistributed to other districts who would choose to participate. However, a Christina School Board member has found that under the “Race to the Top” guidelines districts may be added to the program later and that monies gained from the “Race to the Top” grants may be doled out at the state’s discretion. Does this mean that if a school district decided after an in depth review that it could support some or all of the reform initiatives that Secretary Lowery would WITHOLD money that could help our children simply because the School Board felt it did not have the proper time to review the plan?
The MOU would lock School Boards in an agreement to adhere to the standards and would be used as the “buy-in” that DEDOE would use to apply for funding. The reason that Christina, Red Clay and a few other larger (mostly New Castle County) school districts are being targeted by DEDOE is because the “Race to the Top” funding has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with Title 1 eligibility. Title 1 is the federal program that in a nutshell, steers extra government dollars into “schools with high numbers or high percentages of poor children”. Most Title 1 schools in Delaware reside within the Christina and Red Clay School Districts and so it is essential that the school boards in both districts “buy-in” to the plan. Without them, Delaware would have no chance of receiving all, or a substantial part of the monies it is requesting (I say this with half a smile because Dr. Lowery recanted a story about how Vice President Joe Biden joined her and others on a DSEA retreat and discussed the coming “Race to the Top” money by saying that if they could not fix the education system with all the money we were going to get well then there was nothing that could fix it. Odd that the Vice President would say that about a “Race to the Top” program that was supposed to be competitive and ONLY given to those States who demonstrated the ability to achieve the goals it laid out. How could Vice President Biden have known that Delaware would get any money, especially what he must have considered to be a substantial amount?).
Dr. Lowery then said “if” Delaware was to receive monies from the grant program that the payouts would be split 50% to the states and 50% to the local school districts. She mentioned that DEDOE already had some plan for their half of the money. Some of you may know that the Delaware State Testing Program (DSTP) has failed miserably in its goal to monitor improvement our children’s education. In fact, it has served not only to fail in that mission but another side effect of the testing system was that teachers in Delaware often found themselves teaching to the test and focusing so much on ensuring that students would pass the state assessment. It was critical that the schools maintained growth in their test scores because No Child Left Behind (NCLB) used the DSTP in its review process. Last year DEDOE decided to scrap the DSTP and instead they invested in the new Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System (DCAS). DCAS is supposed to be more dynamic and scalable so that students with higher aptitudes can still be challenged while those requiring more assistance can be accommodated easier. Since the test will draw questions from a regional pool (parents will have very little idea of what questions are included in the system) there will be a much larger sampling and the ability to “teach to the test” would be substantially reduced. In addition to the implementation of the DCAS system, DEDOE will spend part of its monies obtained through the “Race to the Top” program to ensure that every student takes the SAT’s in the coming 4 years. They also plan to send children enrolling in Advanced Placement course to a “Summer camp” to ensure they are familiar with the course work in the AP classes. Years ago high school students would “trend” into the AP courses by choosing a “career path” or a specific set of course offerings that would enable them to enter the AP courses by 12th grade. Some students were able to “test” into the AP courses by effectively skipping an entire course simply by passing a test. While this was fine for AP class numbers (and helped justify their existence) it did not provide the students with the base of knowledge that attending the skipped courses would have granted them. The DEDOE solution? Summer camp. *After Dr. Lowery’s presentation, school board member Shirley Saffer suggested that instead of summer camps, maybe DEDOE could spring for some more textbooks so that when the kids get into AP Calculus, they would have something to read. Score 1 for the good guys!*
...To be continued...
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