Senate Ignites Race to the Top
From the desk of Sen. Gloria Romero:
The Senate Education Committee today passed SB X5 1 with a 5-0 bipartisan vote.
The comprehensive bill containing reforms necessary for California to be eligible and competitive for the federal Race to the Top grants is authored by Senator Gloria Romero (D- East Los Angeles), Chair of the Senate Education Committee, and Senators Bob Huff (R-Glendora), Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara), and Mark Wyland (R- Escondido). The bill next goes to Senate Appropriations, as soon as tomorrow.
"Our work to fulfill our promise of a quality public education for every child in California has just begun," said Senator Romero. "I refuse to be grounded by the status quo. 'Can't' is no longer an option," she said.
Governor Schwarzenegger called a Fifth Extraordinary Session on education in August to focus on California's response to the federal Race to the Top Fund eligibility requirements. Race to the Top will provide $4.35 billion in competitive grants to encourage and reward states that create the conditions for education innovation and reform.According to a recent Ed Source report on Race to the Top, California "may have trouble...convincing the federal government that it is serious about taking aggressive actions to turn around struggling schools" because of the limited effectiveness of past efforts and unwillingness to impose the most severe sanctions on low-performing schools.
"Race to the Top is about enabling successful schools and providing students with a quality education," said Romero. "It is about equality and opportunity for all our children despite the color of their skin or on which side of the tracks they live. It is about shutting down the status quo and transforming the dropout factories and low-performing schools where nearly 80 percent of students are Latino and African American."
SB X5 1 provides for turning around historically low-performing schools, uses data to improve instruction and student performance, removes the state's cap on the number of charter schools, authorizes open enrollment for students in low-performing schools, and requires the state to develop a plan to implement reforms that will make California competitive for a Race to the Top grant. Moreover, the bill puts California in compliance with the federal requirements for the Race to the Top grant and requires the state to apply for the Phase 1 funding.
Since September, Senator Romero has held informational hearings in Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles. A fourth informational hearing on Race to the Top will be held in San Jose on November 9 at 10 a.m. at the Santa Clara Office of Education.
Race to the top is about privatizing education and dismantling unions. The government is tired of paying for public education and is actively trying to present education as failed in order to get rid of it. Allowing students to move from their "failing" school will not change how they do on a test. Firing all the teachers and forcing them to reapply for their jobs at the new "charter" school, located on their previously public campus, will only serve to destroy their morale and drive them out of the profession. Who will be left that is willing to go through all those years of education in order to work at a job where they have no rights and can't afford their student load payments?
You can start using student test scores to evaluate me when you start forcing parents to pay when their child is rude, disrespectful, and disruptive during class. You can use student test scores to evaluate me when the students are held accountable for doing their work. You can use those test scores when the test actually matters to the student (California's STAR test has no effect on graduation, grades, or anything else except the report that may or may not make it to the parents)
There are problems in education. Number one is the states legislation of what can and can't be done on a campus. Number two is the fact that they knowingly underfund the very mandates they require schools to meet. Number three is the expectation that today's students can all learn faster and better than you did when you were in school.
Instead of driving our students out of the schools by making it impossible for them to graduate and inconsequential if they do, we need to provide career/technical education, life skills, and the basics (not Algebra for every 8th grader). Students that can do more should be given the chance to do so. Kids that can't should be given smaller classes with more remediation.
Before you leap to grab for a portion of federal funds that will be spent once and gone forever, consider the long term effects of changing our laws to satisfy the requirements of this flawed "plan".
I agree 100% with what the Concerned Teacher said! Walk into any one of our schools on any given day and you will see the magic that happens. Here in Fullerton we are doing more with less everyday.... the problem is not the schools or the teachers... the problem is that the state gives numerous mandates without fully funding them! It really angers me that people that are not in our classrooms are making decisions for all of us that are teaching our youth everyday. We are in the front lines, why haven't we been asked. I teach Algebra everyday to 8th graders and I love what I do. Who would want to go into education when they hear, see, and feel our state treating teaching professionals with such disrespect.