Hundreds of schools districts and union locals say no to R2T.
As I have been reporting and EdWeek is confirming, hundreds of school districts or their union locals have refused to sign on to Race to the Top.
Out of a total of 500 points in the Race to the Top competition, 45 are directly connected to whether states secure agreement from local school leaders to implement what in many cases will be an ambitious and difficult array of changes designed to improve public education.
States must demonstrate those agreements in signed memorandums of understanding, or MOUs, from local school officials. Under the rules for Race to the Top, an MOU requires the signature of the district superintendent, president of the local school board, and leader of the local teachers’ union if there is one.
California, which has over 1,800 LEAs (Local Education Agencies) has only 790 signing MOUs (Memoranda of Understanding). The major California school district of San Diego was one of the non-cooperating districts.
In Louisiana, 28 said yes while 32 said no.
In Michigan, only 42 union locals out of 600 signed on.
Many LEA leaders and union locals complained that they had no input and had no idea of what their state’s proposals looked like.
Some so-called School Reformers believe that this was actually a good thing, suggesting the more input from communities, teachers and school leaders, the worse the applications.
In several posts on the Washington think tank’s Flypaper blog, Mr. Smarick wrote that the stronger a state’s application for Race to the Top looked, the less likely it was to have enthusiastic local district and union backing.
