Last month, President Obama and Secretary Duncan launched the federal Race-to-the-Top (RttT) initiative, releasing draft guidelines by which states would apply for $4.35 billion in grants, appropriated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA; i.e., the stimulus – see SIIA analysis).  Duncan calls this the “largest pot of discretionary funding for K-12 education reform in the history of the United States.” He may be right. But what kinds of reform and innovation? What exactly is reform and innovation in our K-12 public education system – vouchers, charters, teacher performance pay, e-learning, personalized learning, RtI, constructivist learning, etc.?

As outlined in the RttT draft (which implements the State Incentive Grant program authorized as part of the ARRA State Fiscal Stabilization Fund), reform and innovation in this case are first and largely about enhanced data systems that can match student and teacher performance, globally competitive learning standards and aligned assessments, and charter schools. SIIA generally supports these goals and the four assurances overall, including also the RttT focus on struggling schools. [Read more...]