Race To The Top Competition Deemed 'Impossible' In New Report
President Barack Obama's signature education initiative, the Race to the Top competition, is "impossible" at best and damaging at worst, argues a new, controversial report.
The 100-page report, released Thursday, argues that policies should tackle the effects of poverty while simultaneously making schools better. By not targeting out-of-school factors like nutrition and parental income, the report says, and by focusing on teacher evaluation systems that often result in harsh consequences without much useful feedback, Race to the Top goals are severely mismatched with its policies.
RTTT had recession-addled states compete for hundreds of millions of dollars each. In exchange, states had to promise to do things like institute higher academic standards; lift the ceiling on the number of charter schools allowed; and -- perhaps most controversially -- evaluate teachers in accordance with students' standardized test scores. States jumped at the opportunity to get more money, and some dramatically changed the way they deliver education.
The Broader Bolder Approach, which co-produced the new report in conjunction with AASA, an association that represents school districts, is a coalition of academics