Another enabler of a better funded educational status-quo writes

Susan Barrett, one of the co-founders of Oregon Save Our Schools, has a guest column in the Oregonian titled ?Portland Public Schools was right to give up on Race to the Top.? It is nonsense. Barrett writes, in part (here):

.... I am glad the district gave up on its application for Race to the Top funding. It may seem counterintuitive to those who have not been paying attention to the education reform movement that a group of school advocates would be against such school funding.?

First, you have to understand that this money would have been unsustainable.?

Second, the grant money would not be used for things that parents, students and teachers most desperately want: smaller class sizes, more class offerings and restoring lost programs.?

Finally, it would have increased the stakes on high-stakes testing by making standardized test results a factor in teacher evaluations?.

First, so what if the funding is unsustainable. We can still use it to do useful educational projects,?and, perhaps, bring some personalized educational innovation to a very stagnant, status-quo school district.

Second, my priorities for students are different than Barrett?s. I want change, not a return to a better funded, traditional status-quo educational system. Like neighborhood school extremists who won?t permit further Mandarin or Japanese immersion programs because only neighborhood schools should be permitted, Barrett does not seem open to other, better educational options, or that some parents, perhaps only a minority, might want something different (like immersion programs, a high school year abroad, and/or more online courses).

Further, I have not seen a description of what the grant funds might have been spent on. Maybe Barrett has some inside information. If so, she should share it. Otherwise, how can she say ?the grant money would not be used for things that parents, students and teachers most desperately?want.?

Third, like the Portland Association of Teachers, Barrett is making a big deal of using standardized testing in teacher evaluations. I agree with much of her thinking on the current effects of standardized student test on the general tone, culture and direction of public education. I wish they were not a condition of this grant proposal. But, on the other hand, given the general usage of such student tests as goals for school district achievement compacts, I do not think resisting making them a part (not all) of teacher evaluations is worth rejecting the possibility of significant additional federal funding.

I would suggest that public education does need more funding, but that the road to more public support for additional funding does not run through a narrowing of the types of educational program such public funding would support but rather through efforts to broaden the type of education supported to bring other constituencies. Barrett?s guest column does not help this effort.

Source: http://daveporter.typepad.com/global_strategies/2012/11/another-enabler-of-a-better-funded-educational-status-quo-writes.html

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