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Friday, December 11, 2009

The Educated Guess Race to Top compromise should be doable


The Educated Guess Race to Top compromise should be doable:

"As expected, the Assembly passed its version of Race to the Top legislation Thursday, largely along partisan lines, 47-25. Even before the vote, Gov. Schwarzenegger vowed to veto the bill, saying, “It’s not a race to mediocrity, it’s a race to the top. We want to make sure we get a good bill out there.”

So what would it take to get a bill that Democrats and Schwarzenegger could live with? Probably not all that much: some word changes to Assemblywoman Julia Brownley’s ABX5-8 blended with some pieces of Sen. Gloria Romero’s SBX5-1. Specifically:

Charters: ABX5-8 got too cute in eliminating the annual cap of 100 charter schools per year. It includes gratuitous restrictions under the guise of accountability. So eliminate the language that could hinder the growth of high-performance charters and give charter leaders a say in drawing up new rules for auditing charters’ finances."