Posted in Race to the Top, Standardized tests
Talk of Race to the Top will soon be superceded by all-encompassing anxiety over the state budget. But make no mistake: The two bills the Assembly passed Tuesday were historic; they will have long-lasting and far-reaching effects, whether or not California wins a dime of the $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition.
Despite full-bore opposition of the heavies in Sacramento – the school boards’, teachers union’s and school administrators’ lobbies – by this afternoon, the Legislature will have finally adopted measures thought implausible months ago. As a result, the state will be poised to:
Despite full-bore opposition of the heavies in Sacramento – the school boards’, teachers union’s and school administrators’ lobbies – by this afternoon, the Legislature will have finally adopted measures thought implausible months ago. As a result, the state will be poised to:
- Take decisive action to fix the worst performing schools – an action it has resisted, flying in the face of federal law, for years.
- Revise its fundamentally sound but far from perfect math and English language curriculum standards. They had been viewed as sacrosanct until now.
- Create new nontraditional programs for people interested in teaching science and math, opening up the field to second career candidates with a lot to offer schools.
- Require participating districts to revise how they evaluate teachers and principals, incorporating test scores as one factor. Teachers unions that had dismissed any suggestion of “merit pay” will now collaborate in the process.
- Give parents stuck in terrible schools a new right to send their children to better schools in other districts. Even in its compromised form, which will give receiving districts ways to avoid their obligations, the parental choice provision marks a shift in governance and establishes a new principle: A child has a basic right to attend a good school anywhere.