http://socialistaction.org/obamas-race-to-the-top/
Obama’s ‘Race to the Top’ falters
Published April 4, 2016.
March 2016 Edu cartoon
By KEVIN YESSIAN
In 2009, President Obama issued a fact sheet outlining his new education
reform plan. Race to the Top, as it is called, has four key areas:
rigorous standards and assessments, adoption of better data systems for
reporting, support for teachers and school leaders to become more
effective, and a plan for rigorous interventions when a school fails to
meet standards. In the seven years since this announcement, the results
range from somewhat satisfactory to outright disastrous.
Obama wrote a preamble to the fact sheet on July 24, 2009, which stated:
“America will not succeed in the 21st century unless we do a far better
job of educating our sons and daughters. … And the race starts today. I
am issuing a challenge to our nation’s governors and school boards,
principals and teachers, businesses and non-profits, parents and
students: if you set and enforce rigorous and challenging standards and
assessments; if you put outstanding teachers at the front of the
classroom; if you turn around failing schools—your state can win a Race
to the Top grant that will not only help students outcompete workers
around the world, but let them fulfill their God-given potential.” [i]
As stated, Obama’s goal for this program was to ensure that students
could outcompete workers worldwide. But as a goal for educators, it set
an ill-conceived precedent involving winners and losers.
Kevin K. Kumashiro, in his 2012 book “Bad Teacher,” outlined the
shortcomings of recent federal educational reform plans: “Politicians
and pundits today seem to be unable to talk about educational reform in
terms other than competitions, such as being the best in the world or
racing to the top, in which only some can win while all others must
lose. Even reforms that seem to say that everyone can win are
nonetheless creating winners and losers, such as [the federal act of
2001] No Child Left Behind’s mandate of 100% proficiency in reading and
mathematics by 2014—a rate that has never been reached by any nation in
the world—which actually sets many up to lose because of the sanctions
that follow when failing to meet that unattainable standard. School
reform is making the failures of vast numbers of America’s children
inevitable.”
As Race to the Top’s mandate for rigorous standards and assessments
became translated into Common Core and high-stakes testing, schools
across the nation began to focus their energies into “teaching for the
test,” in order to acquire much needed funds in a time of seemingly
permanent fiscal crises and to prevent punitive measures if their
children failed to meet the required benchmark.
In her book “Reign of Error” (2013) education historian Diane Ravitch
stated, “So we are left with the short-term strategies. [University of
California professor Thomas B.] Timar says that the strategies of
‘bureaucratizing the process of school improvement and turning it into a
chase for higher test scores’ have not worked. They have not made
schools more stable, more coherent, and more professional. NCLB [No
Child Left Behind] plus the Obama administration’s Race to the Top have
made schools less stable, encouraged staff turnover, promoted policy
churn, and undermined professionalism.”
A large part of what make these schools unstable is the practice of
holding schools accountable when they find themselves at the bottom of
the test rankings. For accountability starts with increased pressure to
turn the school around quickly and proceeds to firings and school
closings when they inevitably fail to improve. This does not address the
prevalence of poverty and the ways in which poverty affects the
communities that many of these schools are located within.
Ravitch underscored the fact that “poverty matters. Poverty affects
children’s health and well-being. It affects their emotional lives and
their attention spans, their attendance and their academic performance.
Poverty affects their motivation and their ability to concentrate on
anything other than day-to-day survival. In a society of abundance,
poverty is degrading and humiliating.”
Furthermore, getting a “quality education,” including a college degree,
is not necessarily enough to ensure a quality job that would put the
student in a position to, in Obama’s words, “outcompete workers around
the world.” In a competitive model, those who are born at the bottom,
the “losers,” will most likely attend public institutions. Even if they
succeed at getting through high school and graduating with a
bachelors-degree, they are still competing against those who have gone
through the most prestigious high schools and universities.
“This stratification of college attendance by social class matters,”
stressed the late education theorist and activist Jean Anyon in her 2011
book “Marx and Education.” She pointed out that “selective institutions
spend up to $92,000 per student, while colleges with low selectivity
spend about $12,000 per student. And per-pupil subsidies at selective
universities are eight times greater than at non-selective institutions.
Moreover, the prestige and networks one acquires at a selective school
are invaluable in future job searches.”
Race to the Top might have benefitted a few schools that, with the help
of federal funds, have managed to pull themselves away from the brink of
being closed. For a great many schools, however, this program has meant
devastating interventions that included firings and closings and the
opening up of charter schools in their place. The charters are
privatized and unregulated institutions where young people can possibly
get a quality education but are more likely to find themselves in
ramshackle profit-making enterprises where education is the least of
concerns.
Going forward, true educational reform would have to start, not from a
position of increasing competition but from the idea that we are all of
one worldwide community, facing a global climatic crisis, and that we
need to address structural issues that have resulted in high levels of
poverty, including geographical issues that have arisen due to climate
change, policing, and judicial racism. These items have given rise to
the school-to-prison pipeline and gender inequalities that are
manifested in a myriad of ways, including the persistent wage-gap
between men and women. As these issues remain, so do differentiated
educational outcomes that favor those who possess the most resources.
[i] Barack Obama, July 24, 2009
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/fact-sheet-race-top
Posted in Education & Schools.
Get Involved
Join Socialist Action
Donate to help support our work
Get email updates
Events
Subscribe to Our Newspaper
JAN. 2014 p.1 jpegJAN. 2014 p. 12
Subscribe Today
Subscriptions to the monthly print edition of Socialist Action are
available for the following rates:
- 12 month subscription for $20
- 24 month subscription for $37
- 6 month subscription for $10
Learn More
Email Updates
Enter your email address to subscribe to our free e-mail Socialist
Action Newsletter. Also to receive notifcations of new web posts by email.
Learn More
Newspaper Archives
Newspaper Archives Select Month April 2016 (1) March 2016 (14)
February 2016 (8) January 2016 (11) December 2015 (11) November 2015
(9) October 2015 (8) September 2015 (10) August 2015 (7) July 2015
(13) June 2015 (9) May 2015 (10) April 2015 (12) March 2015 (9)
February 2015 (11) January 2015 (10) December 2014 (12) November
2014 (11) October 2014 (9) September 2014 (6) August 2014 (10) July
2014 (11) June 2014 (10) May 2014 (11) April 2014 (10) March 2014
(9) February 2014 (11) January 2014 (11) December 2013 (10) November
2013 (11) October 2013 (17) September 2013 (13) August 2013 (10)
July 2013 (11) June 2013 (15) May 2013 (14) April 2013 (14) March
2013 (12) February 2013 (10) January 2013 (17) December 2012 (7)
November 2012 (8) October 2012 (19) September 2012 (2) August 2012
(27) July 2012 (18) June 2012 (3) May 2012 (19) April 2012 (14)
March 2012 (17) February 2012 (19) January 2012 (17) December 2011
(3) November 2011 (33) October 2011 (14) September 2011 (13) August
2011 (34) July 2011 (24) June 2011 (19) May 2011 (19) April 2011
(15) March 2011 (15) February 2011 (16) January 2011 (15) December
2010 (17) November 2010 (1) October 2010 (6) September 2010 (3)
August 2010 (8) July 2010 (7) June 2010 (2) May 2010 (9) April 2010
(3) March 2010 (8) February 2010 (3) January 2010 (9) December 2009
(6) November 2009 (5) October 2009 (16) September 2009 (3) August
2009 (2) July 2009 (5) June 2009 (2) May 2009 (7) April 2009 (6)
March 2009 (16) February 2009 (9) January 2009 (10) December 2008
(11) November 2008 (8) October 2008 (16) September 2008 (14) August
2008 (18) July 2008 (12) June 2008 (3) May 2008 (2) April 2008 (3)
March 2008 (14) February 2008 (11) January 2008 (11) December 2007
(8) November 2007 (1) July 2007 (1) June 2007 (1) April 2007 (1)
March 2007 (1) February 2007 (3) December 2006 (11) November 2006
(11) October 2006 (13) September 2006 (15) August 2006 (11) July
2006 (12) June 2006 (7) May 2006 (14) April 2006 (6) March 2006 (14)
February 2006 (5) January 2006 (2) December 2005 (9) November 2005
(8) October 2005 (13) September 2005 (12) August 2005 (9) July 2005
(16) June 2005 (16) May 2005 (16) April 2005 (12) March 2005 (14)
February 2005 (19) January 2005 (15) December 2004 (14) November
2002 (17) October 2002 (19) September 2002 (22) August 2002 (21)
July 2002 (15) May 2002 (21) April 2002 (21) February 2002 (15)
January 2002 (15) December 2001 (17) October 2001 (24) September
2001 (18) July 2001 (19) June 2001 (18) October 2000 (17) September
2000 (21) August 2000 (19) July 2000 (16) June 2000 (26) May 2000
(21) April 2000 (22) March 2000 (28) February 2000 (18) January 2000
(20) December 1999 (20) November 1999 (26) October 1999 (25)
September 1999 (18) August 1999 (40) July 1999 (38) June 1999 (24)
May 1999 (27) April 1999 (25) March 1999 (26) February 1999 (29)
January 1999 (24) July 1998 (12) 0 (2)
Learn More
Pamphlets/Books
Socialist Action publishes a wide variety of pamphlets on burning issues
of today such as global warming, women’s liberation, the Middle East and
other subjects.
Learn More
Socialist Action (U.S.): socialistaction@xxxxxxx | (510) 268-9429
Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste (Canada):
barryaw@xxxxxxxxxx
Copyright © 2016 Socialist Action. All Rights Reserved. Site Design by
Lucid Digital Designs | Site Utilities