Learn from Race to Top failure
Education reformers entered the national Race to the Top grant competition hopeful that California would be among the winners. Alas, the state wasn't among the finalists, and ranked 27th in the scoring among the 41 states that applied.
Rather than give up, reformers need to learn from the outcome of the application process, which proved useful in exposing the state's strengths and weaknesses.
On the plus side, California had strong support from the higher education community, parents, foundations, business organizations, and researchers, and it scored well for its long history in setting academic standards and aligning assessments to those standards. The state scored low on developing data systems to link student and teacher data to measure student academic improvement and teacher effectiveness. Reviewers also noted that the state does not collect data on developing, compensating, promoting, granting tenure to, and removing educators.
California's lag in these data areas is directly attributable to teacher union opposition. The California Teachers Association has long resisted attempts to tie teacher pay and ratings to student performance, arguing that such measurements are arbitrary and misleading. As a result, the CTA discouraged local union chapters from signing on. The state in turn
Read more: http://www.modbee.com/2010/04/15/1129744/learn-from-race-to-top-failure.html#ixzz0lGQJ9DQB