Race To The Top: Capitalism comes to Education?

The gun sounds, and they’re off on the Race to the Top!

President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have just unveiled a new program in education designed to attack the chronic problems facing our schools. Taking the approach that schools need both reform and more money, the Race to the Top program tackles the issue by providing grants to states who “have made significant progress in” nineteen specific criteria under four general areas: implementing standards and assessments, improving teacher effectiveness and equitable distribution, collecting and utilizing data more effectively, and effectively reforming the lowest-performing schools.

How can grants solve that? The Obama administration seems to believe that with $4.35 billion dollars you can solve just about anything. This does mark a major shift in education funding. The Department of Education has not traditionally been busting at the seams with dollars to burn, and Secretary Duncan has even stated that the amount now at his disposal “easily outstrips the combined sum of discretionary funds for reform that all of my predecessors as education secretary had.” Now, thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the $787 billion that it puts in the government’s hands, $100 billion is going to education. Yet this $4.35 billion, hardly a noteworthy amount in comparison, is getting all the attention. Why?

Quite simply, because it’s never been done before. The Department of Education has always been an agency that doles out monetary support to all based almost entirely on compliance. As long as your state didn’t do anything revolutionary, your local school would get their federal allotment. But now, in the spirit of the revolution, innovative and aggressive tactics are being embraced and even rewarded with sizable chunks of money! Finally, it seems, success and accomplishment are being recognized instead of ripped off.

Opponents have emerged, as they often do for education issues, with a startling immediacy. Teacher unions are already livid that no states will be eligible to receive grants unless they remove restrictions forbidding paying teachers based on their students’ test scores. The unions seem to be equally irritated that “states that limit alternative routes to certification for teachers and principals, or cap the number of charter schools” both issues that teacher unions strongly oppose, “will be at a competitive disadvantage” in receiving funding, as declared by Secretary Duncan. With less control over teacher pay, hiring, and certification practices, the administration’s new program is sure to draw harsh formal criticism from these unions in the days and weeks to come.

Another source of opposition is sure to arise when the grants are doled out in each of the two upcoming cycles. States that do not receive a grant in the first round may apply again, but states that are ultimately unsuccessful are sure to cry foul with a “rich get richer” mantra. With grants being awarded to states who have already found success in addressing the criteria, the money will go to those states already performing well, while the states languishing without success may be left without.

When this argument arises, I hope it is greeted with a swift and stern condemnation from the administration, something like this: “What of the other $95 billion in tax dollars distributed by the Department of Education to the states? How did you spend that? How have you spent your money allotted for education for the past decade? While your state was busy toeing the line, other states were visionary and implemented aggressive reforms for the sake of our children and future. We choose to reward them. Perhaps next time you will use your appropriation as wisely.”

If that is the reply that comes, as I hope it will, perhaps this $4.35 billion, a proverbial drop-in-the-bucket in the grand scheme, will have done something that previously seemed impossible: left behind the restrictions, mediocrities, and useless spending at the starting line, while it diligently runs the Race to the Top.

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