Pastorek, school boards at loggerheads over Race to the Top

While other states hurry to play catch-up with Louisiana's pace to win federal Race to the Top funds, educators here are saying, "Not so fast!" The dispute now pits State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek against the Louisiana School Boards Association.

In an interview with Advocate reporter Will Sentell, a Louisiana School Boards Association spokesperson says that most local school leaders around the state don't want a piece of the $4 billion federal pie.

Various organizations, including the LFT, have expressed concern about mandates that will come with the new federal funds. Those include a major expansion of charter schools and tying teacher evaluations to student progress as measured by test scores.

Speaking on behalf of LSBA, consultant Don Whittinghill says that Race to the Top will mandate new programs that will require significant funding when the federal money runs out after four years.

According to the article, LSBA polled its 658 members about accepting Race to the Top funds. Of the approximately 100 who replied, 77% said they oppose taking Race to the Top funds.

In a press release, Pastorek urges LSBA to "not dismiss this unprecedented opportunity," which would grant about $2 million to some 130 schools across the state.

Pastorek's press release states, "We are convinced that Louisiana’s public education system can clearly benefit from Race to the Top, enabling us to effectively support schools, and at the same time, build the institutional structure to continue statewide school improvement beyond the life of the grant."

LSBA Executive Director Nolton Senegal issued a press release affirming his opposition to “mortgaging the future of local public schools for an experimental program that is not based upon any significant body of research.”

Obama announces "Race to the Top" fund

Not everyone is happy with the strings tied to President Barack Obama's nearly $5 billion "Race to the Top" fund , but union leaders like AFT President Randi Weingarten say it's too early to make strong pronouncements.

Many of those opposed to teacher unionism are gloating at the fund's requirement that states allow the use of student achievement data to evaluate teacher performance. Unions like the American Federation of Teachers have traditionally opposed such linkage.

But union opponents could be reading too much into the apparent philosophical divide. After all, the president left no doubt that he sees a vital role for unions in school improvement. He singled out Weingarten's great leadership of a professional union and, when it comes to problems such as turning around low-performing schools, he encouraged local union leaders to work with other stakeholders in "making collective bargaining a catalyst and not an impediment to reform."

Said Weingarten, "President Obama emphasized the importance of working with teachers and their unions to implement successful education reform, saying that collective bargaining can be a catalyst—not an impediment—to reform. He recognizes that this work must be done with teachers, not to teachers."

The Race to the Top fund will provide grants to encourage and reward states for plans in four core education reform areas aimed at improving teacher and principal quality, academic standards, data collection and turning around low-performing schools.

"Will we agree with everything? I doubt it," said Weingarten. "But hopefully we will agree that teacher evaluations must be improved the right way. We need meaningful, fair and multiple measures for supporting and evaluating teachers so that evaluations aren't based on one observation by a principal or one standardized test score."

The AFT president concluded, "Both the president and Secretary Duncan understand that teachers are essential to education reform and that their voices need to be heard as we launch this major offensive to improve public education."

The Associated Press filed this story about the president's announcement of the Race to the Top fund.

Breaking news: LA is in for federal education millions

The stars seem to be aligning for Louisiana to bring in the lion's share of federal education dollars under President Obama's "Race to the Top" program. As WAFB-TV's Keitha Nelson reports here, our state could net $25 million to $50 million per year for up to three years.

There is a catch, of course. As Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek tells the reporter, "aggressive steps" will be expected by the feds, and that could include a greater emphasis on charter schools. It could even mean reconstitution of schools, which Pastorek describes as firing the entire faculty and allowing them to reapply for their jobs.

With just a bit of understatement, Pastorek says, "Not every district is going to want to do this."

The New York Times has a succinct headline over reporter Sam Dillon's story describing Race to the Top: "Dangling Money, Obama Pushes Education Shift."

Dillon reinforces reports that Louisiana might get big bucks from Race to the Top, but also looks beneath the rock at the creepy crawlies that may come with the largess.

The article notes that members of the education community who supported Obama are disappointed, or at least puzzled, by his embrace of what they believe to be the worst aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act. "Much of the grumbling," he writes, " is from educators who say they supported Mr. Obama’s candidacy."

The administration’s stance has caught by surprise educators and officials who
had hoped that Mr. Obama’s calls during the campaign for an overhaul of the No
Child law would mean a reduced federal role and less reliance on standardized
testing.

Indeed, Race to the Top could wind up increasing reliance on high-stakes tests, and on judging teachers and principals by the results of those tests.

EdWeek: Experts worry about Race to Top

The U.S. Department of Education should tread lightly in the way it connects test scores, teacher evaluations and compensation to the $4 billion Race to the Top initiative. That's the opinion of the Board on Teaching and Assessment, which is part of the National Research Council.

As Education Week reporter Lesli Maxwell puts it in this article, the testing experts believe the Department of Education should examine "multiple indicators of what students know and can do" instead of focusing narrowly on a single high-stakes test.

LFT has already sent its concerns to the Department of Education about the $4 billion Race to the Top program, and has notified members about the problems we see. We'd like to know what you think - click here to take a short survey about the Race to the Top program.

LFT to be “fully engaged” in Race to the Top

LFT President Steve Monaghan spoke to the news media at a press conference announcing the state's plans for Race to the Top.


The state’s largest teacher union intends to be fully engaged in how a new federal education program’s funds will be used in Louisiana’s classrooms, Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said today.

“Too many Louisiana children are too poor with needs too great to walk away from a share of the $4.4 billion Race to the Top funds,” Monaghan said.

“What brought LFT to the table is our belief that engagement is far better than disengagement and that dialogue is better than silence,” said Monaghan. “What kept us at the table and engaged in the discussions was willingness of all parties to entertain every part of the proposal as organic. That means we can try properly resourced reforms, and if they don’t work, we can modify them, and even change directions if necessary. Our conversations centered on the possibilities and not on any entrenched position.

“To be very frank, we do not necessarily agree with all the ideas and policies in the proposal,” Monaghan said. “But we do agree that all children and all teachers deserve much better and much more than they’re receiving now. We understand that there remain details to be resolved and unknowns to be discovered. The LFT intends to act as a partner as long as we are treated as such.”

To read the rest of this story, please click here.

LFT President Steve Monaghan on Race to the Top

In a letter to members of the state's largest education organization, LFT President Steve Monaghan explains why the Federation has chosen to participate in applications for federal Race to the Top funds.

As with any big change, Race to the Top has opposition. In deciding to participate, Monaghan had to carefully balance concerns about the $4.4 billion program against the potential benefits.

In the end, LFT decided to participate in Race to the Top negotiations because, as Monaghan said, "engagement is far better than disengagement, and dialog is better than silence."

Louisiana frozen out of Race to the Top funds

Doing a passable impression of the Soup Nazi on the old Seinfeld show, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today said "No money for you" to Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek.

For the second time, our state was frozen out of the education fund known as Race to the Top. In the first round, only Tennessee and Delaware won money; this time, nine states and the District of Columbia will get a share of $3.4 billion from the competition.

Asked for a comment, Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said the loss changes nothing about the Federation's commitment to student achievement.

“The Louisiana Federation of Teachers remains committed to including educator voice and involvement in any initiatives that affect our profession,” said Monaghan. “Despite this development, we will continue to partner with the state and local school districts in achieving our goal of a quality education for all children."

It did not go unnoticed that Louisiana lost its bid for funding even though Pastorek made the competition a top priority of his department, ramming through numerous controversial policies in an effort to demonstrate his passion for reform.

Associated Press writer Dorie Turner put it this way in her report: "But some education groups said 'Race to the Top' rewarded states that have weak reform efforts while leaving out those like Colorado and Louisiana that have made strides to overhaul their schools."

Could loss of the federal funds have anything to do with a governor who's spent the last few months on a beach loudly criticizing the federal government? Or who bemoaned federal spending even as he handed out oversized cardboard checks written on accounts funded by that same government?

The Race to the Top, Microsoft connection

Does Microsoft founder Bill Gates exercise too much influence over U.S. education policy simply because of the millions he is able to spread around? And does that influence fly in the face of what experts know to be the right path to education reform?

This article by Associated Press reporters Libby Quaid and Donna Blankinship raises those questions, saying that Gates' foundation "is taking unprecedented steps to influence education policy, spending millions to influence how the federal government distributes $5 billion in grants to overhaul public schools."

If teachers wonder why the federal Race to the Top program is heavily slanted toward charter schools and teacher evaluations based on student test scores, they need look no farther than Gates. Two of his former employees are inner circle advisers to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and have received special ethics waivers so they may continue their close association with Gates' foundation.

LFT is asking for teachers' opinions of the Race to the Top program. Please click here to answer a short survey about the issues.

Race to the Top rules becoming clearer: less emphasis on test scores and charter schools

Reacting to suggestions from teacher unions, the U.S. Department of Education has modified the teacher effectiveness requirements in the Race to the Top competition. Instead of centering on test scores, RTTT is asking competitors to include "multiple measures" of teacher effectiveness. Student achievement remains a "significant part" of the evaluation, but can include measurements other than standardized test scores. Education Week's Teacher Beat looks at the teacher requirements here.

Modification of the teacher effectiveness component was enough to get the American Federation of Teachers to give the department kudos for striking "the right balance between what it takes to get systemwide improvement for schools and kids, and how to measure that improvement." AFT's comments on the departments effort are here.

A second major change in the final draft of RTTT rules is a lessened emphasis on charter schools as the main drivers of reform: "While the Department believes that charter schools can be strong partners in school turnaround work, it does not believe that charter schools are the only or preferred solution to turning around struggling schools..."

Still slightly unclear is the role that local school systems will play in the state's ability to win RTTT funds. The Louisiana School Boards Association maintains that local buy-in is necessary for the state to win funding.

State Superintendent Paul Pastorek, though, seems to believe that local systems' input will be limited to opting out if they disagree with the program's requirements. As this state department press release puts it, "Districts have the option of whether to participate in the state application, and participating districts are not required to volunteer all of their schools."

State applications for the $4.35 billion fund are due on January 19, 2010. There is a lot of money at stake, and numerous stakeholders who need to be satisfied that the funds will be used to really improve education.

As EdWeek's Teacher Beat puts it, "Fasten your seatbelts... "

Stakeholders wrangle over Race to the Top funds

Wrangling over Louisiana's participation in a planned $4.5 billion federal education program called Race to the Top continues as local school boards and State Supertinendent of Education Paul Pastorek vie to see who will decide how the state's share will be spent.

The stakes are high, as Gannett reporter Mike Hasten writes here. About 130 schools across the state could get up to $500,000 per year for four years under a plan favored by Pastorek.

Not so fast, say the school boards, represented by Louisiana School Boards Association Executive Director Nolton Senegal. The LSBA is concerned about ongoing costs of new programs once the federal funds run out.

Sources say the LSBA is on the verge of recommending against local school boards applying for any of the funds. If that happens, Pastorek says, he is willing to divert all of the money to the state-run Recovery School District.

Unions like LFT also have a part to play in the application process; the federal guidelines suggest that all stakeholders should agree on how the money would be spent. LFT President Steve Monaghan says the union is not opposed to accepting the money, but wants to be sure that it is not used to undermine traditional public education:

Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, said the
final federal guidelines will dictate how his organization will react, "but no
one wants to stand between kids and cash. We want to make sure the cash goes to
kids."

"Right now, we would oppose it if the only turn-around is
reconstitution" of a school, replacing the administration and teachers, Monaghan
said, or if a school in the program has to be a charter school.

Will there be winners in Race to the Top?

A lot of education money will be flowing to the states when the federal Race to the Top program kicks in later this year. As Times Picayune reporter Sarah Carr notes here, and Advocate reporter Will Sentell notes here, Louisiana stands to win a big share of the fund.

Conventional wisdom says that you should never turn down money for education. But we need to understand how the money will be used and determine if those uses are in the best interests of our schools and our children.

EdLog has covered the Race to the Top since it was first announced last summer. Click here to see the whole string of RTTT entries.

NYT: Education law will mirror Race to Top

For anyone who still believes they can ignore the federal race to the Top program and it will eventually go away, this New York Times article is a big wake up call.

Times reporter Sam Dillon gets the story straight from capitol insiders. When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as No Child Left behind) is reauthorized, it will closely follow the pattern set by R2T:

“They want to recast the law so that it is as close to Race to the Top as they can get it, making the money conditional on districts’ taking action to improve schools,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, who attended a recent meeting at which administration officials outlined their plans in broad strokes.

Like it or not, the new direction taken by the feds will include "value added data" - meaning that teachers and schools will be judged, at least in part, by the progress made by individual students during the school year.

Teachers and their unions have an opportunity to get involved and influence the directions taken by public education in the future. Ignoring this trend, however, is a one-way path to irrelevance.

LFT following Race to the Top revisions

As the January, 2010 deadline approaches, education leaders are scrambling to fine-tune the state's application process for federal Race to the Top funds. As Advocate reporter Will Sentell writes here, a major sticking point has been over how teachers will be evaluated and compensated in the future.

While the state could receive as much as $300 million from the fund, a much larger issue will be the permanent structural changes that public education will undergo in order to apply for the money. Initially, only school districts that accept the federal money will be required to make what Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek calls "sea changes" in operating procedures, but it is clear that those changes will be the model for all of public education in years to come.

R2T, as it is called, requires participating districts to "use student performance growth data to inform decisions regarding compensation, retention and release." That could mean many different things. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

LFT has been meeting with Pastorek and his staff, and we believe that important concessions are being made in order to answer some of our concerns. Chief among these is the inclusion of a learning environment index in measuring the success of teachers and schools.

This learning environment index includes language suggested by LFT, and was a part of our legislative agenda last year. It means that conditions which may not be under the teacher’s control must be included in the evaluation – issues ranging from the physical condition of the school to discipline issues, to adequate resources such as textbooks and educational materials.

“Performance-based compensation” is clearly part of the federal mandate for R2T, but what form it will take has not been determined. Broadly speaking, we know that some portion of teacher salaries will be based on the evaluation process described above.

LFT believes that the current teacher salary schedule, including lanes and steps, should be retained, and that any performance-based compensation should be a supplement to that salary. This is one of the issues that may be determined in negotiations between stakeholders and school districts. These deliberations are crucial because the result will be the model for teacher evaluation and compensation in the future.

Is Race to the Top a bum's rush with no basis in research?

Before U.S. Secretary if Education Arne Duncan and our own Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek wax too enthusiastic about the charter schools and merit pay that comprise too much of the federal Race to the Top plan, they should read this article in Education Week (free registration required).

The main thrust of the article is that, for leaders who pride themselves on basing programs on facts and research, Race to the Top comes up short on both counts:

“What is extraordinary about these regulations is that they have no credible
basis in research. They just happen to be the programs and approaches favored by
the people in power,” writes Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New
York University, in her blog, Bridging
Differences, which is hosted by edweek.org.

Ravitch and several other experts quoted in the article all agree that "two priorities at the heart of the program...lack research evidence: evaluating teachers based on students’ standardized test scores and promoting the growth of charter schools."

Before Louisiana's schools get hustled into yet another bureaucratic bum's rush, shouldn't we ask the intelligent questions, and then base policy on real research and data?

Can't we all just get along?

LFT President Steve Monaghan's letter to Governor Bobby Jindal is getting all kinds of media attention for pointing out the flaws in the governor's proposed education agenda. Headlines like "LFT chief decries Jindal’s plan to cut red tape" (Will Sentell in The Advocate), "Gov. Bobby Jindal's education proposal criticized by Louisiana Federation of Teachers" (Associated Press reporter Melinda Deslatte), "LFT president expresses concerns over Jindal school initiative" (Gannett reporter Mike Hasten) and others all lead by stressing Monaghan's criticism of Jindal's plan.

Journalism thrives on conflict, so it's fair that reporters concentrate on points of disagreement. But with the exception of Mike Hasten's, none of the reports delve into the most important issue raised by Monaghan - that the state would be better off if Governor Jindal would seek cooperation on areas of agreement.

It's a tack taken by LFT in negotiations with Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek over the state's Race to the Top application, and it works. Here's how LFT puts it in a press release:

Instead of pursuing an agenda that guarantees confrontation during the
upcoming session, Monaghan urged the governor to “embrace the philosophy that
marked our Race to the Top discussions.”

“Together, we can find ways to increase respect for and value in tenure
as the ‘meaningful and active process’ described in the application,” Monaghan
wrote. “We can have an honest discussion of R2T’s ‘learning environment index,’
and provide teachers with the power to identify impediments to achievement at
the site level and to trigger corrective action. We can debate ways to reward
teachers for excellence or for additional contributions without appearing to
attack teacher salary schedules.”

“Our recent experience with Superintendent Pastorek and his team in the
creation of the state’s R2T application demonstrated that engagement is far
better than disengagement,” Monaghan’s letter concluded. “We hope that we can
look forward to working with you in the interest of our children in the coming
legislative session.

Is R2T the model for education's future?

As Louisiana rushes to get a piece of the big new federal education pie, the national perspective on the $4.4 billion Race to the Top program is becoming clearer. Education Week reports that the direction taken by R2T will soon be reflected in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

EdWeek reporter Alyson Klein says the Obama administration and Education Secretary Arne Duncan plan to make R2T "the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s plans for a new ESEA. "

Klein quotes administration spokesperson Carmel Martin as saying, “I think some of our big-picture goals are, first, to carry through the reform agenda that we see in Race to the Top and other [recovery act] programs, to carry that forward through ESEA.”

Educators - including the LFT - are dubious about sections of R2T that encourage expanding charter schools and basing teacher evaluations in part on student achievement.

But in Louisiana, Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek has been willing to listen to Federation concerns and modify the state's R2T application in response to them. Notably, Pastorek scaled back the percentage of evaluations that depends on test scores, and included a "learning environment index" that takes factors beyond a teacher's control - such as poverty and school resources - into account.

This press release from the State Department of Education recognizes LFT's role in shaping Louisiana's response.

As EdWeek points out, R2T's coming influence concerns some states because of its emphasis on common standards. That could work to Louisiana's benefit.

While our accountability standards have earned the state much praise from reformers because of their rigor, we've been at a competitive disadvantage with other states with lower academic standards. Our high standards make it look as though our children aren't performing at the same level as those in other states, when the reality is that we are simply demanding more of our students.
Common standards would level that playing field.

EdWeek commentary: Is merit pay the answer?

Educator/author Kim Marshall has some food for thought about teacher merit pay in this Education Week commentary.

The piece offers good reasons to slow down on the lurch toward performance-based pay for teachers. It creates an understanding of why the organic approach favored by the Department of Education's Race to the Top application is better than Gov. Bobby Jindal's intent to pass laws mandating performance based pay (in this context, organic simply means that the concept should be allowed to grow and, if necessary, change and adapt if it does not work as planned).

One important argument offered by Marshall is that standardized tests can be "instructionally insensitive" or, as he puts it, "better at measuring students’ family advantages and disadvantages than the school’s or the teacher’s value-added effect."

The Department of Education's resident testing expert, George Noell, admitted as much when he told a joint Senate and House Education Committee last week that our current high-stakes tests are not well suited to a value-added evaluation system, but that they can be tweaked to suit the purpose.

To help resolve that issue, LFT insisted on including a "learning environment index" in the state's Race to the Top plans. That index takes factors outside of a teacher's control into account then measuring student achievement.

What is Marshall's alternative to test-based measures of value-added accountability?

In many of America’s most effective schools, principals make frequent
unannounced visits to classrooms and give informal feedback on what students
are learning and how instruction can be improved. Teacher teams in these
schools collaboratively design curriculum units, give common assessments to
their students every four to six weeks, immediately huddle to discuss what
worked and what didn’t, share best practices, reteach what wasn’t mastered, and help struggling students.

By frequently checking for understanding and fixing learning problems
before they snowball, these schools draw on teachers’ and administrators’
collective wisdom and keep everyone’s focus on the most important questions: Are
students learning, and, if not, what’s our next move?

In schools which operate on that model, Marshall says, "...students in these schools are making dramatic gains, and achievement gaps are being closed. Small wonder that teachers in these schools are continuously improving their craft."

School reform should involve whole communities

The U.S. Department of Education is committing over $4 billion to a program called Race to the Top, and states will compete for a share of the fund. As reported earlier in EdLog, Louisiana is positioned to receive a goodly portion of the money.

But before the competition can begin, the DOE must write rules. Up until last Friday, the department was collecting comments and suggestions about those proposed regulations. The Louisiana Federation of Teachers is one of thousands of organizations, individuals and governmental bodies that submitted comments.

You can read LFT's press release about the comments here, and the comments themselves are posted here.

In the document. LFT President Steve Monaghan warns about the danger of unintended consequences:

“Too often in the recent past, school reform has meant no student left untested
and no teacher left unblamed. We hope that Race to the Top can open a new
chapter in the school reform movement, one that values the professionalism
of teachers and embraces a whole-community model for change.”

LFT's comments are a product of our state's experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and grounded in the Federation's core values. Monaghan says that true education reform requires a bolder, broader approach than in the past, one which treats the school as an integral part of a larger community:

That means any long-term evaluation must include components that measure
the contributions of parents, administrators and school boards to student
success. Broadened further, the process should include the roles played by
systems of health care, juvenile justice, higher education and all the other
elements of community that have an impact on the growth and development of
an individual student.

LFT on Race to the Top: Now the work begins

Louisiana made the first cut in the competition for nearly $4.4 billion in new federal education funds. Now, as LFT President Steve Monaghan says in this press release, the real work will begin.

That's because the work done thus far has largely been theoretical or, as Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek likes to put it, "at the 10,000 foot level."

Not that the deliberations that went into the state's application were easy or uncomplicated, or without controversy. But that was the level at which philosophical differences were explored, and agreements reached that promise great flexibility to educators at the "ground level." The success of Race to the Top will now be determined by those local educators.

As Monaghan puts it, "The work to be done must occur in an arena of mutual respect and with a strong commitment to do what is good for children, is effective, and is fair to educators and staff.”

Gannett reporter Mike Hasten covered the story for this report.

Senator praises LFT efforts in Race to the Top

While acknowledging the Louisiana Federation of Teachers' concerns about the federal Race to the Top program, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu has praised the union for "supporting the state's efforts to secure as much of this grant money as possible."

In a letter to Federation President Steve Monaghan, the senator wrote "This historic $4.3 billion competitive grant program...represents an unprecedented investment in innovation and reform in education."

"An investment in reform that can transform our state's education system would be the greatest legacy we could leave our children," Senator Landrieu wrote. "Moreover, the economic viability of our state depends on training a well-educated workforce capable of excelling in 21st century jobs."

"I understand that LFT does not agree with all of the details of the state's plan," the senator continued. "However, it is admirable that your organization is supporting the state's efforts to secure as much of this grant money as possible despite your differences. I am confident that any concerns you may have with the plan can be ironed out as we move forward."

Click here to read the full letter.