TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2009
(copyright 2009 Texas AFT)

Race to the Top? Draft Rules for State Access to Feds' Incentive Fund Raise Many Issues

Under the economic-stimulus bill passed by Congress in February, federal aid totaling roughly $100 billion was dedicated to public education. More than $6 billion of that total already has found its way into the education budget of the state of Texas over the next two fiscal years.

A small portion of the $100 billion in education-stimulus funds--about $4 billion--was carved out and allocated to the U.S. Secretary of Education for a State Incentive Grant Fund that can be used to encourage states to pursue "reform" policies favored by the federal government. If Texas were to qualify for a share of that money in proportion to the state's population, our state would receive around $316 million. To put that share into further perspective, it's equal to a mere six-tenths of 1 percent of the state budget for Texas public schools over the next two years.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan now is trying nonetheless to use his small Incentive Grant Fund as a lever to force big changes in education policy at the state and local level across the nation. Duncan has issued draft rules for the incentive fund, which he is marketing as the "Race to the Top Fund," that would require states to promote some controversial policies.

For example, under Duncan's proposed regulations, states would be disqualified from receiving any of the incentive money if they have any "barriers to linking data on student achievement (as defined in this notice) or student growth (as defined in this notice) to teachers and principals for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation." Student achievement "in tested grades and subjects" would be defined primarily by "a student's score on the State's assessment." And the draft regulations call for teacher evaluation, promotion, and compensation decisions to be based on a teacher's effectiveness as thus measured largely by the test scores of the teacher's students.

This proposed requirement is based on the bald assertion that "one of the most effective ways to accurately assess teacher quality is to measure the growth in achievement of a teacher's students," without any acknowledgment of just how maddeningly difficult it can be to attribute students' performance on a given snapshot test to a particular teacher. Secretary Duncan's proposal simply ignores a large body of scholarly research that demonstrates the inability of so-called "value-added" methodologies to attribute student gains on tests to particular teachers with anything like the accuracy needed for high-stakes employment decisions.

Is Secretary Duncan really proposing to insist on the use of questionable methods of linking "student growth" to individual teachers as a precondition for states' access to the incentive fund? If a state has a law requiring scientific, peer-reviewed validation of value-added methodology before it can be used for the purpose of evaluating or compensating teachers, will the federal government deem that law an impermissible "barrier" to linking data on student achievement to the evaluation of individual teachers?

The Duncan draft of the "Race to the Top" regulations also would encourage states to shut down schools, convert them to charter schools, or contract out to an "educational management organization" as preferred strategies for turning around struggling schools. Only if these options "are not possible," the draft regulations say, should states implement a "school transformation model" focused on critical factors such as professional development, comprehensive instructional reform, and family and community engagement. Again, the question arises: Where is the evidence to justify Secretary Duncan's preferred strategies and to slight the evidence-based reform strategies that have actually turned around struggling schools?

We have cited here just two of the significant concerns that deserve a full airing during the public-comment period on the proposed regulations, which continues through August 28. Texas AFT certainly will take the opportunity to submit comments, as will our national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers. We will do so in light of President Obama's statement last month that the competition for state incentive grants "will be based on a simple principle--whether a state is ready to do what works." If that is so, then Secretary Duncan will have to rethink his proposed rules, because they make assumptions about "what works" without compelling evidence to back up those assumptions.