Most Local Schools Bypassing Race to Top

January 8, 2010

While the California Department of Education and the state Legislature are clearing the track to compete for federal Race To The Top (RTTP) funding, many local agencies have chosen to not step into the starting blocks.

The Santa Mari a-Bonita, Santa Maria Joint Union High School, Orcutt Union, Lompoc Unified and Santa Ynez Valley school districts have all decided to not participate in the program.

Locally, only Lucia Mar Unified and Guadalupe Union school districts have filed paperwork to be included in the RTTP.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 set aside $4.35 billion nationally for RTTP funding. California could be eligible for up to $700 million, but it must “compete” with other states for the funds according to the rules set forth by the federal Department of Education.

Last month, the state Department of Education forwarded the groundwork of applying for the funding to the local districts.

The state asked local educational agencies (LEAs), which are school districts, county education offices and charter schools, to submit letters of intent to participate in RTTP by Dec. 31. They have until today to submit a final Memorandum of Understanding to join the program.

The CDE on Tuesday announced that nearly 800 of the state’s LEAs, representing more than 3.7 million students, had submitted letters of intent to participate in RTTP.

However, those numbers represent less than half of the state’s 1,700 local districts and charter schools, indicating that most school districts around the state have decided to pass.

The Legislature this week passed a pair of bills – SBx5 1 and SBx5 4 – that are designed to make California eligible for RTTP funding.

The bills target the state’s lowest performing schools for drastic reform. They also allow parents to move their children from schools identified as “low performing” to any other school within the district.

The RTTP deadlines and new legislation have not swayed many local district administrators.

&# x0D;

“We are not, at this point, planning on submitting by the Jan. 8 deadline,” said Phil Alvarado, superintendent of Santa Maria-Bonita School District. “To us, it’s not just about receiving extra funds, but you don’t know what strings are going to be attached to it.”

Just like the stimulus funding many school districts received in 2009, the RTTP funding is one-time money. But the RTTP funding requires a long-term commitment on the part of participating schools.

Those terms and a lack of information about the program caused many districts to opt out.

“I don’t want to commit the district to something that we don’t know what the long-term costs are going to be,” said Sharon McHolland, Orcutt district superintendent. “The money is one year and the commitment is five years.”

The commitment calls for districts and schools to embrace policies laid out by President Obama. Those policies include adopting internationally benchmarked K-12 standards, reforming student performance data tracking, boosting the quality of teachers and administrators, and instituting drastic reforms in low-performing schools.

Because of the depth of the proposed reforms, implementation of RTTP in California requires more than approval from the LEAs. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Superintendent Jack O’Connell, both of whom have already indicated support, the California School Board Association and the California Teachers Association, which opposes state RTTP legislation, all need to sign off on the program.

One of the questions district administrators have is: “How much money will be available through the program and how long will it last?”

District administrators don’t see a one-time infusion of federal money as a long-term solution to their dwindling state funding.

In the 2007-08 school year, the last year the state fully funded public education, the Santa Maria high school district received $6,667 per student from the state, according to a new report.

Projections for the 2010-11 school year indicate the district will receive $5,997 per student, a $670 decrease over three years.

“The district did not file an intent to apply nor do we anticipate doing anything with Race to the Top. The reasons are really two-fold: A lack of details from the state and the late notification to districts,” explained Greg Kampf, superintendent in the Lompoc district. “We just can’t move forward unless we have the employee groups with us on this and the state didn’t allow us enough time for that discussion.”

Kampf said the district received its RTTP document from the state three days prior to the winter break.

The state’s schools are already mandated to work toward making federal standards established by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Alvarado said Santa Maria-Bonita is already a year and a half into a Program Improvement reform with a state-approved District Assistance Intervention Team consultant.

“Our feeling is that we’re already addressing these things,” Alvarado explained.

Lucia Mar superintendent Jim Hogeboom said he, too, feels that his district has implemented programs that are required by RTTP, but said those similarities are exactly why his board members decided to sign on.

“I was initially ambivalent to it, but the more I read about it, the more I saw it aligned with where the district was going anyway,” Hogeboom said. “Frankly, it’s not a lot different than your No Child Left Behind requirements, and we’re already doing that now.”

Hogeboom said the only sticking point of RTTP for the Lucia Mar district is how to handle underperformi ng teachers and schools. But he added there is little difference between the current Program Improvement reforms and those in RTTP.

Hogeboom noted that participation gives the district a chance to get additional funding without drastically altering its existing programs.

“We don’t think it’s going to be a lot of money, but frankly right now we’ll take any money we can get,” Hogeboom said. “I’m actually excited about it.”

Still, the thought of transitioning from the federal mandates of NCLB to the requirements of RTTP have created more questions than answers for many  educators and administrators.

“It’s really about ‘Do we shift directions entirely, or do we continue on the path we’re on?’ If they marry together, that’s fine,” said Doug Kimberly, superintendent of the Santa Maria high school district. “It’s difficult to jump on board when we don’t know what the train looks like.”