Thursday, March 27, 2014

I'm Not Sure How To Respond To This

I don't know what schools had to do, or how many applied, in order to be considered for this grant, but on the face of it things don't look good for government education centers in California:
Of all the schools in California, thousands, only one, a charter school chain, qualified for the national “Race to the Top” honors.  What does this say about government schools in California?  To me it is simple, it proves what has been said about California government schools, there are mediocre or maybe good or terrible, but not great.

Rocketship Education, with eight K-5 charter schools in San Jose, one in Milwaukee and invitations to expand into urban districts in other states, is the sole finalist from California competing for $120 million in the second district Race to the Top competition.

The U.S. Department of Education announced the finalists last week for the federal grant program for education innovation; nationwide, 29 districts and two charter organizations qualified as finalists.”

1 comment:

maxutils said...

Here's where I would start: Can you think of any government award given to a school or teacher that doesn't begin with a teacher with too much time on his/her hands filling out a lot of paperwork, and end with a cursory viewing of the school on one or two days? I can't. The real question is why is the federal government involving itself at all, given that it has no Constitutional grounds for doing so?