Send the entire BOE to Washington

Perhaps the timing of that trip to Washington DC is worth it.

How's this for pressure... the only way the trip to DC by the two BOE members will be worth it, is if they can prove instrumental in securing for Illinois (and Peoria) a win in the Race to the Top competition. This, of course, would require networking their arses off and making a heck of a impression on the powers that be during the week on June 12 - 17.

Illinois Races to the Top
Illinois has been named a finalist in a Department of Education nationwide competition.

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin said Illinois is among nine finalists in the Race to the Top competition, which encourages bold education innovation and reform.

"Maintaining the status quo in our schools is simply not acceptable," said Durbin. "We need to elevate the quality of our schools, improve instruction and boost college graduation rates. We owe it to our children to give them stronger skills to compete in the global economy."

In addition to Illinois, Arizona, California, Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and South Carolina all are eligible to compete for the $200 million prize.

As a part of the application process, Illinois was asked to document past successes in education reform as well as outline plans of continuing improvements for school districts.

Durbin says Illinois is eligible to receive up to $50 million in funding through the Race to the Top education reform competition. Source

The Sisyphean task that is "Race[ing] to the Top"

Have you ever heard the story of Sisyphus? Sisyphus was a very crafty king who defied the gods and tried to elude death. His punishment in Hades was to endlessly roll a huge stone up a hill -- as soon as it reached the top, it would fall back to the bottom. The poor king spawned his own adjective, Sisyphean, meaning an impossible task.

Today the U.S. Education Department has announced that nine states and the District of Columbia will receive money in the second round of the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" school reform grant competition.

Once again, Illinois did not make the cut.

Department spokesman Justin Hamilton says the winners are: Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. The amounts of the grants are expected to be announced later.

The competition has instigated a wave of reforms across the country, as states passed new teacher accountability policies and lifted caps on charter schools to boost their chances of winning.

Winner's of the first round of the competition are to share $600 million. Today's winners will share $3.4 billion. Another $350 million will be disbursed in a separate competition for states creating new academic assessments.

District 150 targeted by State for school reform

Turning around schools is difficult and highly controversial. Going into broken schools and creating a new culture is a quagmire. There will be colleagues who will fight for the status quo and figuring out who is really on your team won't be easy. If children in Peoria are to have any hope of a decent future, there is no denying that our schools must be turned around. IF Dr. Lathan comes to District 150, her past experience should serve our schools well, IF we should be so fortunate as to actually be a part of this initiative to improve low performing schools.

Illinois partners with Mass Insight and five other states in public-private initiative to improve lowest-performing schools

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) announced February 2, 2010, it will participate in a three-year, $75-million public-private partnership with five other states to develop long-term reform strategies for their lowest-performing schools. Illinois was selected to join the initiative, along with Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Massachusetts and New York by Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, a Boston-based non-profit education organization focused on closing achievement gaps.

"We’re excited to work with these states and Mass Insight to identify and implement new strategies to turn around struggling schools," said State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch. "This initiative, funded by an unprecedented amount of federal dollars and private donations, calls for dramatic broad-scale interventions."

The Partnership Zone Initiative will be funded by a variety of private and public sources, including increased federal funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Additional money for these six states could also be awarded through the federal Race to the Top competitive grant program.

The states will initially establish Partnership Zones in a limited amount of districts with clusters of low-performing schools that will serve to demonstrate the success of a more strategic approach to turnaround. Each cluster of schools will be teamed with a lead partner, an organization that directly supports principals in turning around schools. Lead partners are experienced turnaround leaders selected by districts that have been pre-qualified by the State Board of Education. The Illinois Partnership Zone will also include assistance from "Supporting Partners" who will help the district and lead partners improve the effectiveness of teachers and principals in Partnership Zone schools.

Illinois will likely select the initial Partnership Zone participants from the 12 districts or Local Education Authorities (LEAs) that have signed on to accelerate improvement efforts as "Super LEAs" in the state’s Race to the Top Application. Schools chosen for the Partnership Zone will be given a higher degree of priority to receive funding through Illinois' share of federal school improvement grants, and may receive as much as $750,000 per school year for three years.

Much of the additional funding will go toward increased teacher compensation to support extended learning time, intensive professional development and incentive pay in Partnership Zone schools.

Illinois’ Super LEAs, as identified in the state’s Race to the Top Application, are:
■Community Unit School District 300
■De Pue Unit School District 103
■Decatur School District 61
■Kankakee School District 111
■Meridian Community Unit School District 101
■Peoria School District 150
■Plano Community Unit School District 88
■Rich Township High School District 227
■Rockford Public Schools District 205
■Elgin Unit School District 46
■Thornton Fractional Township High School District 215
■Zion-Benton Township High School District 126

The Partnership Zone is a hybrid model that combines the benefits of a district with the operating flexibilities most frequently associated with charter schools. Zone schools remain inside the district and may continue to tap into the efficiencies of many district wide services. However, Zone schools also give school level leaders the freedom to make staffing, scheduling, curriculum and salary decisions, in return for being held accountable for dramatic student achievement gains within two years. (this is the part the teacher's union will hate)

The six states were selected for this group based on:

■A commitment to the Partnership Zone framework set forth in Mass Insight’s 2007 report, The Turnaround Challenge;
■A commitment to investing the resources necessary for successful turnaround; and,
■Alignment and support of state leadership.

States plan to launch Partnership Zones on a flexible but aggressive timeline; with some states, including Illinois, implementing zones as early as the 2010-11 school year.

WONDERFUL NEWS - VERY EXCITING!!

A look at a Race to the Top Application

Here is the link to the entire 200-page Race to the Top application for Georgia.

Here is an excerpt that will interest teachers outside of core areas on the issue of performance pay:

Value-added score, which measures the effect of a teacher or a school on student learning. Value-added scores will be calculated on the basis of standardized tests currently available in Georgia (CRCTs in Reading, Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science and End-of-Course Tests in High School). This means that only teachers in tested subject areas (approximately 30% of teachers) will have value-added scores, a constraint that all VAMs have in common. Georgia does not plan to create new summative tests in non-core areas. Because such tests must be developed across multiple courses and subject areas, they are not cost-effective. Instead, Georgia plans to invest in the development, testing and evaluation of alternative quantitative measures to assess student engagement and student achievement – see (4) below. The quantitative value-added component will constitute at least 50% of the overall TEM for teachers in ―core‖ areas (tested subjects) and at least 50% of the overall LEM for all building leaders.

(3) Reduction of the student achievement gap at the classroom/student roster level (for teachers) and the school level (for principals). Georgia is defining the student achievement gap as the difference in achievement between any student subgroup (n ≥ 15) in a given teacher’s classroom (or overall roster of that teacher’s students) and the highest performing subgroup in the State (based on aggregated performance, by student subgroup, at the State level). For principals, student achievement will be aggregated, by subgroup, at the school level and the differences in achievement between the school’s subgroups and the highest performing subgroup will be used as a basis for determining size of gap reduction. GOSA will work closely with the TAC to identify a) the specific method for calculating the reduction and b) the level of gap reduction needed to be deemed significant.

(4) Other quantitative measures, to be developed, tested and evaluated by the State in collaboration with participating LEAs. Georgia anticipates that it will, at a minimum, contract with a provider to develop a number of teacher-focused surveys (e.g., student surveys starting in grade 4—based on research pointing to student surveys being reliable instruments starting at this grade level14; parent surveys in grades pre-K through 3; as well as peer surveys) and principal/school-focused surveys. GOSA and participating LEAs and a potential external provider will look at best practices of climate surveys targeted at students, staff and parents, with the goal of measuring a principal’s effectiveness in creating a favorable school environment and working conditions.

Thoughts?

Pushing a harder line for the weakest schools

If a public school struggles year after year, is the solution to shut it down? Fire everyone and start over? Hand the reins to a contractor? Or help teachers and principals raise their game?

The Race to the Top is pushing a harder line for the weakest schools. School systems that want a share of the federal aid have four options (all of which we are seeing in Peoria):

Turnaround: replacing a school principal and at least half the staff;
Restart: converting a school to an autonomous charter school or hiring an education management organization to run it;
Shutdown: closing a school and dispersing its students; or,
Transformation: replacing a principal, improving teacher effectiveness and taking other steps for comprehensive reform.

Systems with nine or more of the weakest schools may use the transformation option in no more than half of them.

"After years of school improvement efforts, there are far too few examples of persistently low-achieving schools that have significantly and rapidly improved performance. We believe that, in part, this is because turning around such schools generally requires fundamental changes in leadership and often in governance and staff, changes that many [local education agencies] are reluctant to make."
Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Will it work?

Source

State Representative Jehan Gordon - Racing to the Top

State Representative, Jehan Gordon sits on the Race to the Top committee and is working with the Illinois State Board of Education to ensure that Peoria schools are not overlooked. To follow is a short statement about her commitment to RT3.

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A strategic team has been put in place for RTTT. This money will flow through the Illinois State Board of Education and as a State Representative, I will be in constant contact with that agency and utilize every resource that I have in Springfield to best position our community for this phenomenal opportunity. This is a team effort and it will require hard work on behalf of many people to get this done. I am up for the challenge because the reward--our children receiving the kind of education that we all can be proud of--is the ultimate prize!

Read the entire statement here...

President Obama on Race to the Top (RT3)

President Obama gives remarks at the Department of Education on Race to the Top, a competition to get states to implement school reforms that produce real results. The $4.35 billion fund will reward eligible states for their accomplishments, and create incentives for future improvements. July 24, 2009.