Duncan on Race to Top: Bold Reform More Crucial Than Buy-In
After staying out of the Race to the Top round-two fray for weeks, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is finally starting to take the gloves off and wade into the middle of a big debate over just how important "buy-in" is in a state's application.
Today, in a routine conference call with the business community (he does this sort of outreach regularly), he declared: "At the end of the day we're going to [fund] the strongest proposals whether they have tremendous buy-in or not." (The department invited me to listen in on the call, which was to encourage business leaders to support states' Race to the Top efforts.)
Although broad collaboration and buy-in should remain a goal, he said, if a state's proposal is "more consensus but watered-down reform, that's not going to be a winning application."
The growing tension between states and unions over being bold, yet getting "buy-in," is illustrated in this EdWeek story from Friday.
And, it was mentioned in today's Wall Street Journal, where Duncan said "watered-down proposals with lots of consensus won't win." (For the record, the Education Department has declined EdWeek's requests for an interview with the secretary on this topic of "buy-in".)
The June 1 application deadline for the second round of Race to the Top is about six weeks away, and states are
Today, in a routine conference call with the business community (he does this sort of outreach regularly), he declared: "At the end of the day we're going to [fund] the strongest proposals whether they have tremendous buy-in or not." (The department invited me to listen in on the call, which was to encourage business leaders to support states' Race to the Top efforts.)
Although broad collaboration and buy-in should remain a goal, he said, if a state's proposal is "more consensus but watered-down reform, that's not going to be a winning application."
The growing tension between states and unions over being bold, yet getting "buy-in," is illustrated in this EdWeek story from Friday.
And, it was mentioned in today's Wall Street Journal, where Duncan said "watered-down proposals with lots of consensus won't win." (For the record, the Education Department has declined EdWeek's requests for an interview with the secretary on this topic of "buy-in".)
The June 1 application deadline for the second round of Race to the Top is about six weeks away, and states are