Bakersfield.com

larger view

In his recent Opinion letter, Louis Wildman listed reasons for why “evaluating teachers on the basis of student test scores is not a good idea.” Although this idea has been discussed for several years, it is now part of the critical debate taking place in Sacramento due to an additional federal stimulus plan including $4.35 billion for competitive grants to states to improve elementary and secondary education called Race to the Top (RTTT).

So much emphasis has been placed on the issue of merit pay for teachers that the other restrictions required for the funds have been ignored. In order to even apply for the additional funds, a state must remove any legislative restriction on the use of student performance data (test scores) to evaluate teachers; the state must remove any legislative cap on the number of charter schools; the state must adopt common national academic standards; the state must enact a provision that each year it will identify five percent of the lowest performing schools in the state and that those schools will be subject to one of four possible actions: converted to charter, replacement of administration and staff, taken over by private management, or other major form of restructuring. In addition, it is being suggested that SB 1 which calls for expanding schools/districts of choice into a state-wide program may be included in the Governor’s plan to obtain RTTT funding.

These are significant changes in California’s education laws, changes that, if enacted, will affect schools for many years to come. The Governor and the legislature must consider the long range consequences of their actions in light the facts about RTTT.

First, it is estimated that only eight to fifteen states will be granted a portion of the funds. There is no guarantee that California will get any of the additional stimulus money and yet will be saddled with all of the required legislation.

Second, should the state be chosen to receive RTTT funds, once the money is distributed among the chosen states, California’s portion could be as low as $500 million. Half of that must be allocated within the state to Title I schools and the other half reserved for use at the state level, much of it ear-marked for an educational data base. Of the thousand school districts in California, few will benefit from the stimulus dollars.

Finally, the money is one-time funding in return for continuing federal requirements on all state and local educational programs. Any projects to improve student academic progress initially funded with RTTT dollars will need to be paid for by the state in the next year, thus encumbering an already cut-to-the-bone state education budget.

Our leaders in Sacramento must realize this and see that the small carrot is not worth the very large stick.