The State of Oregon is preparing an application for federal 'Race to the Top' funds. This is a competitive grant, and if Oregon's feeble proposal warrants financial support then the nation is in worse shape than even I believe.
What are Oregon's strategies? (See if any of this sounds familiar)
1. Merit pay for principals and teachers if their school improves. (But not for principals and teachers whose schools already perform?) This old shoe will never be implemented, though national examples of half-implementation followed by gradual abandonment abound, offering the consolation that others have been gullible before us.
2. Reshuffle teachers and administrators if schools don't perform. What does this mean, exactly? Move those supposedly low-performing teachers and principals to better schools and move teachers from better schools into the low-performing school? That's it? But doesn't that mean that the district-wide teaching staff is precisely what it was before, but is now assigned to different schools? Doesn't that just redistribute the same level of effectiveness? (And didn't Portland do this in the early days of NCLB?) How is that improvement? And for the 100-or-so Oregon districts that have only one building per grade level, it means less than nothing. It means that they are superfluous.
3. Frequently inform students how their performance compares to grade-level benchmarks. Yes, it's called 'scientifically-based nagging'. This is a clear winner, because no-one can resist the motivational power of a good nag. I suppose that this could eventually lead to merit pay for the very best nag. Maybe even a nag-of-the-year award down the road!
Conspicuously missing from the list? Anything to do with Oregon's bare tolerance of charter schools. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thinks enough of charter schools that he stopped by to address the national charter convention to unveil the Race to the Top program in person. Where does Oregon stand on this strategy? Out in the cold. Why? Because in the Oregon political 'verse, unions determine elections and children are too young to join unions. So charter schools, which are opposed by the NEA, the OEA, the national pTa, COSA, and every other major stakeholder in the status quo, are only grudgingly tolerated and are under attack in every legislative session. Yet charters are at the center of the federal improvement strategy. So Oregon sides against the Democratic president, his Secretary of Education, and the grant-readers who will determine the distribution of significant federal dollars. And we offer them a good old-fashioned 'nagging' in hopes that they don't real the grant too closely.
Poor, poor Oregon. We tolerate the absurdity of No Child Left Behind because of the availability of grant money...a case of bad practice tolerated in the name of fiscal necessity. And now we are essentially turning down federal dollars because we don't want to see real innovation take hold in the form of charter schools...a case of promising practice avoided in spite of urgently needed financial incentives.
Nobody can say that Oregon doesn't act on principle...but the principle seems to be that what's good for reelection is good for the kids. And reelection means avoiding real reform while talking incessantly about oh-so-incremental school improvement: the song that never ends.
Superintendent Castillo has announced that she is running for a third term. The word on the street is that nobody will bother running against her. But she's not taking anything for granted, and her campaign is clearly underway.
