Race to the Top

Education Secretary Arnie Duncan just said that the vast majority of funding (80-90%) of education funding is and should be local, because control of education should be local. How do you say that when the federal government sets the rules? And since when is it okay to hold supplemental funding up as some sort of carrot? "Do it our way and we'll give you the money to do it." Does it matter that if the schools were given the funding they could, in many cases, make their current programs successful? And what happens to these radical changes, these pioneering programs, when the federal money they just won runs out, and the local economy has to support the program? The only reason many school districts are going for the federal mandate is because they need the money. We are encouraging our school districts to subscribe to whatever methodology is popular and funded, rather than looking at building sustainable, local funding programs that allow schools to use educational best practices instead of politically-popular quick fixes that are the education equivalent of the grapefruit diet?

More importantly: you cannot incentivize academic success when that's only half of what particularly primary school teachers are teaching. You can link academic success to teacher pay when the teacher stops having to teach social and personal skills. Sometimes, no, a child may not be reading at grade level, but if he came in hitting and leaves able to interact with his peers, that's success. Alternately, if a teacher is having to teach social skills and reading, start paying them for the social work, too.

Discuss.