MAINE AVOIDS DUNCAN'S RACE TO THE FLOP PLAN

Maine Public Broadcasting - The U.S. Department of Education is meting out shares of a $4 billion grant called "Race to the Top," which rewards states that can show that their reforms have improved student performance. California and Florida could each receive up to $700 million this next year, but Maine won't be included in the first phase of the two-year program -- largely because it failed to meet criteria laid out by the Obama administration. . .

To bring more schools up to par on educational standards, the Obama administration created the Race to the Top grant to reward states that have expanded curricula offered in charter schools, turned around their lowest performing schools with innovative programs, and that can tie teacher and principal salary increases to student test scores. . .

Teacher contracts in Maine are determined by local school districts -- not the state -- and Maine, like 10 other states, doesn't have a charter school program, and that means an automatic deduction of 32 points under the rules of the grant. . .

WE DIDN'T MISS ANYTHING. . .

Schools Matter - Since last fall, Bush and Obama have handed over 3 trillion dollars (give or take a few hundred billion) in taxpayer money to save American business from the ruin that corporate greed and profligate behavior would have otherwise guaranteed the entire country, except for those with foreign bank accounts, of course.

In comparison, 2.5 percent of that $3 trillion, or $100 billion, went to the education bailout, and a sliver of that $100 billion (4.3% of it) has been given to the Secretary of Education to "incent" states to change their laws so that they will be in line with the Broad/Gates corporate education reform based on paying teachers for test scores, creating mammoth data surveillance systems, opening up the floodgates to "alternative" teacher preparation programs and expanding corporate charter chain gang schools to become the dominant model for schooling in urban America. . .

Most believe that none of 4.3 percent of the 2.5% of the corporate bailout will improve education or close the achievement gap or accomplish any of the blah-blah about competitive global economies. What it will likely do is continue shrinking school curriculums into the box built by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, weaken the teaching profession and teacher unions, make test scores even more high stakes and certainly more high profit, and solidify the education industry as the dominant voice for urban school matters in America. . .

And all of it is going full steam ahead despite what the preponderance of evidence tells us about these proposals.

For instance, [in] the only peer-reviewed large-scale study of charter schools, a 14 state study out of a Stanford research center reported that 17% of charters did better than public schools, while 37% did worse. The reason that charters do no better, and frequently do worse, than public schools is that they do not provide the promised innovations, have higher turnover and less qualified staff. Also clearly emerging from the findings is that charter schools segregate by wealth and race. . .

A study of performance pay in Texas reported yesterday in the Dallas Morning News found this:

"For the $300 million spent on merit pay for teachers over the last three years, Texas was hoping for a big boost in student achievement. But it didn't happen with the now-defunct program, according to experts hired by the state.. . . 'There is no systematic evidence that TEEG had an impact on student achievement gains,' said researchers for Texas A&M University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Missouri."