Race to the Top and reality

In California’s effort to qualify for up to $700 million in federal Race to the Top school funding, there’s been a lot of talk about open enrollment and linking teacher evaluations to student performance. As they are framed in the state’s new school reform law, however, neither of those provisions is likely to bring dramatic improvement to the schools that need it most. Instead, the most promising idea is contained in the state’s application for funding: a request to change the way school improvement is measured.

For years we’ve railed against the provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that credits schools solely for how many students test as “proficient,” one of five levels of achievement. From the bottom, those are: far below basic, below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. A school might bring the majority of its students from the lowest level to basic and still be categorized as failing. Conversely, it might target a small number of students who are slightly below proficient, bring them up a notch and be called a success. The system has encouraged schools to ignore their most troubled students, as well as already proficient students who could reach advanced.

California is asking for permission to instead measure how much each student’s achievement improves year to year. This could serve as a model for revising No Child Left Behind, which is a goal of the Obama administration. The U.S. Department of Education should approve the request.

In other ways, though, Race to the Top will bring a muddle of change. More than half the state’s school districts have not signed on to the application, saying the money they might receive isn’t worth the new demands. They would continue to measure performance by the current system. They would not participate in the new curriculum standards the state is proposing to create or the new tests it would administer. They also would not move to link teacher evaluations to student achievement.

This means that, at least for a while, California’s public schools might operate in two parallel universes, with two sets of standards, two sets of tests and two different academic performance indexes, the chief measure of school achievement -- making school-to-school comparisons even more baffling than they are now. Even school districts that signed the state’s application wouldn’t necessarily change teacher evaluations; they are required only to look into making the change.

This is all far more complicated than it needs to be. But the opportunity to escape from the rigid and unrealistic measuring system of No Child Left Behind is too tempting to resist. It’s worth the price of the confusion that will ensue.