Photo by Sean MacEntee

Photo by Sean MacEntee

For the tertiary time, California has failed in its bid to secure even a minor slice of the $iv.3 billion Race To the Peak federal teaching fund. This time the U.S. Department of Teaching summarily rejected the land's application only one day after receiving it, proverb information technology was "incomplete."

The application was fabricated on behalf of 7 school districts that had formed a consortium titled California Office to Reform Education, or Core. The districts are Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno, Sanger, Clovis, San Francisco, and Sacramento Metropolis.

At the heart of the conflict was Gov. Jerry Brown's refusal to sign the encompass sheet of the first phase of the application, apparently because he was reluctant to commit the country to a series of requirements imposed by the Obama administration, such as tying teacher evaluations to test scores of their students and longitudinal tracking of student performance.

"The governor's refusal to let districts who want to practice the work at a time when public schools' budgets are getting cut is just unfathomable," said Hilary McLean, communications managing director for the CORE consortium.

The Department of Education'south rejection reflects an elevation of the tension betwixt California and Washington over the requirements imposed past the Obama assistants for receipt of these and other federal pedagogy funds, as well as for qualifying for a waiver from some of the most onerous requirements of the No Kid Left Behind law. California has however to use for that waiver, and may well not do so.

It also represented a setback for those promoting science and math education. The guidelines for this tertiary circular of funding required that "a meaningful share of the award be spent to accelerate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational activity in the state."

Neither the U.Southward. Department of Instruction nor Gov. Brownish's press part responded to a asking for a annotate on Thanksgiving eve. In a joint argument, Superintendent of Public Pedagogy Tom Torlakson said he was "disappointed" with the issue, and Michael Kirst, president of the Land Board of Pedagogy, defended California's proposal as "unique in the federal contest" considering "it did not rely on centralized top-down country policies or mandates."

Just two days ago, Brown, Torlakson and Kirst sent a letter to U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan indicating the state's support for the CORE districts' application. California, they wrote, "remains committed" to the requirements demanded by the Obama assistants for Race to the Top funds and agreed to by the Legislature ii years agone.

But in the same paragraph they told Duncan that the land "cannot afford to implement these reforms statewide, nor tin it compel local education agencies (schoolhouse districts) to implement them."  Simply they indicated that the seven Cadre districts that submitted the proposal would exercise and then.

That statement reflected the reality that at least some of the changes demanded past Washington would take to be negotiated with teachers' and other unions — ane commune at a time.

In Duncan's eyes, the letter from Dark-brown, Torlakson, and Kirst apparently did not correspond an adequate replacement for the governor'south signature on the comprehend sheet of the application, every bit spelled out in the regulations in the Federal Register.

That gear up off what McLean called several days of "shuttle affairs," at to the lowest degree via telephone and electronically. Kirst reportedly talked to Duncan to endeavor to resolve the differences between the Brown and Obama administration on the issue.

What specially frustrated backers of the application is that California was all but assured of getting the funds. Only finalists in before rounds of the Race to the Top competition only had not received whatever funds were eligible to apply: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky Louisiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

A document issued terminal month by the U.Southward. Department of Pedagogy listed the amounts each land could expect. California'due south share was listed as $49 1000000. "Almost $fifty 1000000 had California's name on it," said McLean.

"The coin was ours for the asking," echoed Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson in comments to the Fresno Bee. "One meg students were left out in the cold, and it didn't have to be this way."

Gov. Brown clearly had a different view.

Read California's letter to U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan.

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