Race to the Top Fund

The Race to the Top (RTTT) fund is one of the many programs created in Obama's stimulus package. The program received $5 billion in total with more than $4 billion of that to be used for grants to the states (the remainder for employment and costs of running the program). They received 41 state applications in the first of two rounds. Only two states, TN and DE, received funds in the first round. From what I have read, the requirements to win a grant are vague. This vagary is good on one hand as it could allow for more entrepreneurial efforts to improve schooling. One the other hand, it more likely is bad because it means that there are more back-door deals that must be struck. I believe that latter will dwarf the former.

Teacher unions have worked hard to obtain the cushy packages and requirements in current contracts (as opposed to working hard to improve student learning). Given the overwhelming lack of support by teacher unions to the plans submitted for the grants, the RTTT fund may ultimately lead to an improvement on the status quo. For instance, in the first round MI, whose proposal was rejected, rated poorly in that they had very little support from the teachers unions (roughly 8%). Lack of support from teacher unions seems like a good thing to me; the unions are a large part of the problem to begin with.

Colorado is the first state (to my knowledge) to successfully invoke a large change in state policy in response to the RTTT fund. The state has eliminated the automatic tenure for teachers upon being employed for 3 years. Instead, to earn tenure a teacher now has to show that she or he has "boosted student achievement" for 3 consecutive years. A tenured teacher can also lose tenure if her or his students do not show progress for 2 consecutive years. While well intentioned, I don't believe this plan will do much good for the students over the status quo. The teachers union will likely play a major role in determining how achievement is measured. Given that the union works to improve teacher salary, benefits, and job stability--not student achievement--you can be assured they will find a way to make this plan work in their own favor.

Overall, the RTTT fund is a state planner's attempt to create incentives to improve student learning. Only those ideas approved by the planners will be funded through the program. This alone is enough to ensure that not much good will come from the program. Indeed, some small gains may result, but I doubt these small gains could not be achieved at a much lower cost than $5 billion. There has been much more innovation resulting in charter schools than in traditional public schools over the past decade. This experimentation and improvement in teaching methods (although there clearly have been many failures too) is the result of a residual claimant and of competition. Without a residual claimant--someone who bears the full cost of bad decisions and who fully benefits from the good decisions--our primary and secondary schooling system will not improve much over the status quo. In other words, the best method to improve the system is to privatize it.