"Race To The Top": Segregation Gone Wild!
Late last week, New Jersey announced which of it school districts would be applying for Race To The Top grantsin a competition designs for individual districts. The controversial program started at the state level; it rewarded states with relatively small amounts of money for implementing policies like charter school expansion and using standardized test data to rank teacher effectiveness.
There is no evidence that any of this will work, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been completely incoherent on his reasons for pushing the program. No matter: RTTT marches on, now with individual districts vying for grants based on who can most quickly implement these unproven polices.
It's telling that only 21 districts out of the 603 in New Jersey thought enough of the program to even apply. Perhaps that's because so few of the stakeholders see any benefit from the grants: Ronnie Greco, president of the Jersey City teachers union, summed it up well when he pointed out to his fellow teachers that there was no benefit, and possibly great harm, in adopting the policies RTTT would have required.
Still, it appears at least one of the districts - Hamilton in Atlantic County (not Mercer) - went ahead over the objections of their teachers. Gee, great way to build a cooperative spirit, folks; maybe you should have read this message from the other Hamilton superintendent, Dr. James Parla, before going ahead.
But that got me thinking: why would Hamilton in Atlantic County apply, but not Hamilton in Mercer County?What makes a district more likely to apply, and subsequently adopt RTTT's unproven policies, if they win?
Well, all New Jersey school districts are assigned a District Factor Group (DFG) code. This code gives a picture of the socio-economic status of the residents in the district. A DFG of "A" indicates a district with a lot of poverty; a "J" indicates affluence. Which were the districts that applied?*
Look at that: not one district higher than an "FG" applied for the RTTT grant money. And look at the percentage
There is no evidence that any of this will work, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been completely incoherent on his reasons for pushing the program. No matter: RTTT marches on, now with individual districts vying for grants based on who can most quickly implement these unproven polices.
It's telling that only 21 districts out of the 603 in New Jersey thought enough of the program to even apply. Perhaps that's because so few of the stakeholders see any benefit from the grants: Ronnie Greco, president of the Jersey City teachers union, summed it up well when he pointed out to his fellow teachers that there was no benefit, and possibly great harm, in adopting the policies RTTT would have required.
Still, it appears at least one of the districts - Hamilton in Atlantic County (not Mercer) - went ahead over the objections of their teachers. Gee, great way to build a cooperative spirit, folks; maybe you should have read this message from the other Hamilton superintendent, Dr. James Parla, before going ahead.
But that got me thinking: why would Hamilton in Atlantic County apply, but not Hamilton in Mercer County?What makes a district more likely to apply, and subsequently adopt RTTT's unproven policies, if they win?
Well, all New Jersey school districts are assigned a District Factor Group (DFG) code. This code gives a picture of the socio-economic status of the residents in the district. A DFG of "A" indicates a district with a lot of poverty; a "J" indicates affluence. Which were the districts that applied?*
Look at that: not one district higher than an "FG" applied for the RTTT grant money. And look at the percentage