The California Legislature Did Our Job on Race to the Top --Will Governor Schwarzenegger Cross the Finish Line?
By Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles)
In a relay race, timing and coordination are everything. If you don't have a baton that you can successfully pass to the next runner it doesn't matter how fast you go--the race is lost.
The Assembly had that in mind as we worked carefully these past few weeks to finalize legislation to improve our schools and keep California competitive for a share of $4.3 billion in federal "Race to the Top" education grants.
The Assembly passed a comprehensive bill that advances significant education reforms and helps the state meet the application deadline for Race to the Top. The legislation followed statewide hearings and meetings with stakeholders, which took time, but which Race to the Top rules require.
We also took time to conduct in-depth negotiations with the Senate and the Schwarzenegger Administration--and our end result includes higher standards for math and language, real tools for teachers at low-performing schools, increased intervention for consistently troubled schools, stronger parental involvement and greater ability for students in the lowest perfoming schools to transfer to higher performing schools.
We also make it easier to to use student performance to evaluate teachers and replace up to 50% of the staff in the lowest performing schools. The Assembly strongly supports teachers and the job they do in the classroom. We also felt strongly that these provisions should be part of the final package.
Together, these steps will improve the quality of education for our children. They also reflect both the spirit of Race to the Top and the rules released by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, which I and Assembly Education Committee Chair Julia Brownley discussed with Secretary Duncan before moving the Assembly proposal forward.
Now that the Senate has also approved the legislation and the Governor has signed it, I am confident we have passed forward a solid baton.
That would not be the case if we had bowed to the intense pressure we were under to act in haste and pass a bill prematurely. But we couldn't just rubber stamp a bill that had been written before the rules for Race to the Top had even been released, which "guessed" at the requirements and recycled pieces of policy proposals that hadn't gained traction before.
Instead, we developed a compromise bill that embraces challenging national common core standards, ushers in a new process for assisting lowest performing schools and emphasizes relying on data in making instructional decisions.
Now, it's Governor Schwarzenegger's turn.
While this legislation clearly sets the stage for Governor Schwarzenegger to submit a competitive application to bring home a Race to the Top grant, he also has his own burden to shoulder.
Race to the Top bases 25% of a state's score on a governor's school improvement plan. Now that we have given him the right tools in the time frame he needed, Californians should expect him to submit an application and a state plan that can bring home the full $700 million that California schools desperately need in the first round of funding. Take the baton over the finish line.
While the governor has yet to make elements of his plan public, I really hope he approaches his leg of the race with the same seriousness we did. However, since a commitment to stable funding is part of the Race to the Top criteria, the impact of Governor Schwarzenegger's upcoming budget proposals on schools could quite possibly have as much effect on our Race to the Top chances as the actual application California sends.
With the passage of our legislation at least, we're on the right track.
One recent editorial referred to the compromise passed by the Assembly as "a good-faith blending" of the Race to the Top bills and noted the package includes "elements that school reformers viewed as next to impossible to enact even a few months ago."
To me that sounds like an outcome worth waiting for--an outcome worth taking the time to do right. Because, as important as Race to the Top is, it's not the ultimate prize.
What is?
Well, if you think about it, the baton in a relay race looks a little bit like a diploma. And having more of those -- and having them mean more -- is what this is really all about.