California loses bid for federal Race to the Top education grant

California has fallen short in its bid to win a controversial federal Race to the Top school-reform grant.

The winners, just confirmed by federal officials, are Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia.

Had they prevailed, participating California school systems stood to receive as much as $700 million. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest school system, was in line for about $120 million; Long Beach Unified would have received at least $18 million.

The Obama administration created the competitive grant program to spur its vision of reform nationwide. A total of $3.4 billion was available.

In California, school districts had pledged to pursue reforms that included linking teacher evaluations to the standardized test scores of their students. The grant application committed them to using this test-score analysis for at least 30% of a teacher's evaluation.

A new evaluation system, however, would need to be negotiated with local teacher unions, and that was by no means automatic. In fact, California representatives were queried about that issue during a 90-minute presentation this month before federal evaluators in Washington, D.C.

The five-member California delegation included L.A. schools chief Ramon C. Cortines and Supt. Christopher J. Steinhauser of Long Beach Unified. Neither teacher union signed the state application nor did either of the two major state teacher unions.

As a result, California lost some points with evaluators, but officials stressed that no single virtue or shortcoming would by itself determine the fate of an application.

The California superintendents told evaluators that they thought they could bring local unions on board, and, if they could not, they were prepared to return federal dollars accordingly. L.A. Unified has moved on that front in the last few days, with union officials signaling a willingness to negotiate over the possible inclusion of test scores as part of a reshaped, multifaceted teacher evaluation.

California's plan focused on strategies favored by the Obama administration, such as placing the most effective educators in struggling schools and improving instruction through the improved use of data.

The state blueprint also embraced the federal endorsement of aggressive remedies, such as replacing the staff at a poorly performing school and converting it to an independently run charter school. Most charters schools are non-union, another arena of discomfort for teacher unions.

In the end, the number of high-quality applications overstretched the available funding, said department spokesman Justin Hamilton. As a result, a few deserving states had to go home empty-handed, he said.

Delaware and Tennessee already had prevailed in a first round, which concluded in March.

Critics have long argued that some states, including California, were too willing to trade the prospect of badly needed, one-time funding for policies that were academically unproven and that could prove prohibitively expensive over the long term.

Still, some unions supported the final product in their states. The efforts in New York and Florida were endorsed by Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers. She praised leaders in those states for being inclusive of teachers. She said such collaboration was missing in California.

California officials were divided on whether to bid a second time, especially because the state had failed to make the finals. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan personally urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to try again.

The result was a revamped approach that relied on a core of superintendents who committed to deep and fast changes. But even that wasn't enough.

-- Howard Blume

Photo: LAUSD Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, right, leads U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on a tour of Samuel Gompers Middle School in 2009. Duncan urged Gov. Schwarzenegger to apply again for the federal grant. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Bernie]

This is truly sad, but not surprising for California... The worse state for education and its teachers...

[Bernie]

You can thank your unions... This is their priority.. Can you imagine.. I blame only the unions and no one else...

[Norma C.]

California sure has changed in the last 60/70 years. I know I am a born and raised Californian for 85 yrs.

[Chris Kakimi]

Education is a right, not a race.

[LAUSD teacher]

This is karma for the poor treatment of teachers and reconstituting Fremont High for only political reasons and leaving the kids to hang out to dry with inexperienced staff. What a shame but next time maybe the district won't be so quick to blame teachers for all of their problems.

[Janet]

The winning states reflect an odd geographic clustering. With the exception of Hawaii and Ohio, all are on the eastern edge of the US. Adding in the prior winners only underscores this fact. The outlier in that group is Tennessee, the remainder still are on the eastern seaboard. 12 contracts, 9 washed by East coast ocean-water. Somehow, this is more than counter-intuitive as to expected distribution. Not a single state west of the Mississippi, with the exception of Hawaii is in the group of winners.

Just possibly this has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the things ranted about in this sequence of comments.

Federal programs have a long history of geographic bias built into the legislation itself, typically to benefit states east of the Mississippi. Even when the division isn't East-West, an evaluation of Contractor location over the past 10 years also shows heavy geographic clumping in specific regions (Texas in particular sticks out.) Political clout has historically had more to do with the distribution of federal dollars than nearly any other element.

I submit this is just business as usual in Washington DC

[Kev]

California: The leadership, if you want to call it that, continuing to erode this state which will be far behind others. What happened?

[Kev]

@ Peterwolf who said, "This despite all the pull our illustrious Democrats ( Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, Waxman, Stark, Waters (if she's not in jail yet)) are supposed to have with the White House. Let's see now, what's their track record so far?
a) California has the lowest credit rating in the country
b) One of the worst unemployment rates
c) One of the highest tax rates
d) One of the worst performing economies
e) A relatively low amount of federal stimulus money pulled into the state considering our size and the fact we're Obama's ATM for campaign funds.
Now we can add this dismal failure. Anyone still planning to vote for Democrats in this state or is it Bush's fault?"

Agreed.

[Jan Mintz]

Has anyone done the math? 700 million for the state works out to about 70$ per school -and it's only a one time payment.

We need to fix the state's financing structures, school funding structures, and our CST testing system. There is so much that could be done, but we all just operate like a deer in the headlights. Our state is a mess. The little amount of federal funding for the schools would be so minimal.

[GusLevy]

Gee, what a shock that California lost out on this Amazing Race!!

When the various Cal Teachers unions did all that they could to sabotage this "race" how is the result a shock in any form? Ummm, they are already the among the highest paid with generous pension plans - what exactly is their incentive to give any concessions on teacher evaluations? What...for the kids?!

As for the Federal govt, what is their incentive to have California win in this same "race"? Similar to the Democratic Party not really ever having an incentive to create inherently better and honest opportunities for the Black population since they vote overwhelmingly for the Dems, the Feds are telling us here in Cali that we are pretty much a lock in national elections for the Dems as well so there is no need for them to throw us any bones...

[reno]

why would they give them any more money? They plan on keeping federal dollars til next year from the recent aid. They just don't have their priorities straight.

[reno]

why give them more money when they haven't and don't plan to disperse money sent to them. They want to use money for next year while they hire more consultants.

[Christopher]

It's amazing to me that anyone of working age understands the value of investing for your retirement. But people don't understand the importance of investing in children. Repeal prop 13 for chrissakes!

Who do you think is going to be taking care of you when you are sh!tting your pants and forgetting your own name. Evidently it will be someone who has a GED and flunked out of junior college because they couldn't pass the most elementary math and english classes.

[jennifer]

Thanks to the LA Times for another opportunity for union bashing. The union is teachers. They don't "protect" bad teachers; they help all teachers to maintain collective bargaining rights and due process. Effective teaching should be a given, and teachers who aren't helping students should be helped to improve their strategies; following that, they can be counseled out of the profession. But as several people have mentioned here, the administrators, students, parents and community all have a role to play in maintaining effective schools. Some of the very best schools in California are public schools -- guess what they have in common??? School funding should never be a competition.
How can we leave no child behind if we are racing to the top?

[ohplease!]

Don't blame teachers. There are 50 states trying to get in one life boat. Instead of fighting over the one boat we should push for more lifeboats. Shame on Obama for not providing for all of America's children.

[paula]

HOW FAR IS CALIFORNIA READY TO BEND OVER FOR THE UNPROVEN AGENDA of a misguided Obama educational policy. Educators should lead any reform effort, not politicians. We know how they do it. Lie, do whatever it takes to get their way and forget the little people. I'm glad we didn't get the money because in California, we can improve achievement the old fashioned way, hard work and effort. Race to the Top, race to no where.

[C.K.]

A lot of these comments are absurd. I've been in classrooms (on both sides of the desk) recently enough to know that the people like thinkingmom and thinkingdad and the teachers weighing in are dead right.

1) Tying teacher evaluations to student performance on tests will slaughter our education system. Here's something a lot of parents either don't know or don't really want to consider: your students usually don't care about those standardized tests. They goof off. They doodle or daydream or random-bubble a lot of those questions. It's not part of their classroom grade, so why do they care? All attitudes I saw or heard demonstrated in my peers growing up and in students when I did classroom observations. Why are we so bent on connecting teacher pay and retention to something that the students don't take seriously? Connect it to actual student performance--something the students are marginally more likely to care about--and we might be a little closer to useful ideas.

2) California has one of the most stringent teaching programs in the country. The high school program is a brutal, make-you-or-break-you education that involves additional undergrad coursework on top of your major coursework, education course pre-requisites, and years of student teaching and evaluations, any of which could result in you getting the boot. It's not something taken lightly, and all of these students know that they're going to be making a pittance (Yes, the unions help, but teachers are still not paid what the larger public thinks they are. If teachers were "greedy," as some would attest, I think the salaries would be a little bit better than they are.)

3) Most of the people here seem to be all too willing to blame teachers for failing students, but a precious few seem to recognize that the teachers aren't the major force where these kids' futures are concerned. Parents are increasingly willing to make it all on the teachers, but someone has to get instill the value of education in these students, someone has to help them study when they're not in class, and someone needs to make sure they're actually getting educated. You think teachers are doing a terrible job? How would you know? Have you talked to the teacher at length? Visited a class? Reviewed what your kid is working on or studying? An evening telephone conversation or emails back and forth really aren't too much to ask--if your kid's education is that important to you that you're taking time to be this livid about this education article, then you certainly can find the time to touch base with their teachers. Both of my parents worked while I was growing up--each worked 50+ hours a week. But you'd better believe they got involved in my education and my brother's education. This is why both my brother's in his career AND pursuing a master's degree and why I've finished an MA degree and am starting a PhD.

Are there bad teachers? Of course. But there are far more excellent ones, and people seem all too willing to trash everyone without making any sort of distinctions--or without seeing what their own contribution is to the problem at hand.

[Joyce]

I work for the DHS as a health care provider. Let me tell you, these unions protect health care workers that should not be treating patients! But why do they do it? Because these people pay their union dues and they need them to keep paying their salaries. The Teachers Union, is just the same. Follow the money trail and you will see why they fight tooth and nail for what seems like nonsense principles. The bottom line is that they do not care about our children NOR do they care about the teachers. They only care about where they can get their next pocketful of money..... Follow the money trail....

[Paul B.]

Those of you screaming 'union this and union that' show little understanding of how complex this issue is. Of course the LA Time - a long-established anti-union newspaper - is going to spin this story to place primary blame on the teachers unions. The schools in California mirror the state of the crumbling and ineffective government because you people somehow seem to prefer a centralized, state-run school system with policy being set in Sacramento.

Californian's created the current system by tolerating it. A largely ignorant populace whose only knowledge of issues comes from 30-second political ads, who are totally ill-equipped to make intelligent voting decisions and who can't see the impact that their decisions make beyond the here and now, made this government. You get what you tolerate. The situation in the City of Bell is a perfect microcosmic version of the larger problem to which am referring.

The LAUSD is as bad as it is because Angelenos allowed it to get that way... not because of teachers unions. The only reasonable conclusion is that deep down, no one cares enough to DO anything about it - except to ignorantly blame teachers unions. And you wonder why teachers feel the need to band together to protect their profession.

[Ryan Mullen]

Take a long, hard look at the states that won the Race to the Top. I see electoral votes in pivotal states. One must remember that in 2008, the President-elect carried California (and our 50+ electoral votes) with little problem. California never really had a fighting chance in the "Race". We are solidly in the Democrat column. Before I get responses stating that I am bashing the current administration...if it were a Republican President, he/she would do similar.

[Barbara Stam]

Unions built the middle class. The top education state, Massachusetts is wall-to-wall teacher unions. High achieving countries in Europe are also wall to wall teacher unions. IT'S NOT UNIONS. Education has declined as our middle class has declined. Some of the lowest-achieving education states don't have unions or have weak unions.

And multiple choice test scores: please, they tell almost nothing about a student's learning. If you want to test, use writing and have students figure out the math problem and show their work, don't have them fill in a bubble. Students are not accountable for these tests at all. So why should teachers be accountable for them? Kids do much better on the CAHSEE because it is needed for graduation. We need standards that are not a mile wide and an inch deep and we need tests that involve writing, speaking and other forms of assessment.

If America starts to bring back middle class jobs, you will see education improve as well.

I find it amazing that no one seems to have a problem with students living in gang-infested, tagged up neighborhoods passing prostitutes and abandoned dogs on their way to school. You don't want to solve that problem, you just want to blame teachers. It's so much easier.

[kids first]

As a teacher I want to thank Jennifer Moser and the "thinking mom and dad". I am so upset at this time that I worked so hard last year trying to prepare my students for the state test while also including science, social studies, writing, character education, and physical education in our day only to have 10 of my 19 students reach Proficient and Advanced on both the ELA and Math tests.
Honestly if I was only in it for myself I would choose another career. Kids come first in teaching. We have bleeding hearts trying to get students who are Far Below Basic to understand and retain information assessed on our state test.
One person posted that Californians need to get involved. I encourage you to come in to your child's classroom this year with 30 children in K-3. I encourage you to attend a PTA meeting or a Board Meeting, parents don't usually come.
Sure I am in the union and I do care about my job but the politics of this job and the ignorance of people outside my profession may cause me, a very respected teacher to throw in the towel. People need to find out the facts. I did all I could for some of my students who I got no support from home and what do you expect when other parents are very involved.

[Phill Lombardo]

Governor Rick Perry of Texas phrased it correctly when he explained why he refused to apply for RTTT funds, "We do not need a bureaucrat in Washington dictating to us how to run our schools."

School control is a state issue. In fact, citizens receive the right to an education in state constitutions, not the federal constitution. It's a shame that we pay federal taxes and Obama and Duncan require us to jump through hoops in order to get some of our money back.

Californians pay more to the feds than residents of other states, yet we didn't get any of the RTTT funding. Our money went to support schools in Florida, Alabama, etc.

It's not right.

[derek]

I am so tired of the UTLA lies.

Here are the facts. In 2008, there were 30,000 tenured teachers employed by LAUSD. 21 were fired for cause. Of those, if historical trends hold, 14 will get their jobs back in a adminstrative hearings or court proceedings that make it almost impossible to meet the standard of proof UTLA has negotiated to get someone fired.

So, at the end of the day 29,993 out of 30,000 are performing well and deserve to keep their jobs, and get automatic pay raises. This makes teachers in the UTLA the most successful, hard working employees who have ever existed.

The only people who don't see this as a scam to protect the incompetent are the incompetent themselves.

[dogrob1]

SO WHATS NEXT??