It isn't about Federal Money in Education, It is about Failed Policies

The article in the Huffington Post regarding Obama's budget proposal for increased federal money in education totally misses the mark.  While Republicans oppose Obama's proposal for more money for certain programs, mostly for his policy of "Race to the Top," Democrats say that the money is desperately needed for states not to lay off teachers and significantly increase class sizes.  The most important point is completely missed in this article and isn't being discussed in the media or in education circles in the federal government, which is the failed, expensive, federal education policy that began all this mess: George W. Bush's NCLB. This was a policy that Republican­'s touted as the end-all to saving our educationa­l system to ensure that "no child (is) left behind."

Unfortunat­ely, the Obama administra­tion lead by Arne Duncan has done nothing to significan­tly change or reform this expensive policy. Now, they just call it by a new name: "Race to the Top;" yet another way to push the competitiv­e, market-driven model of education on our historical­ly democratic system of education that is supposed to teach ALL children in the country. These two diametrically different ways of educating our citizens can't co-exist.  We either only support those who are the best (or at the "Top") or we strive to teach all. 

The fact that the federal government enforces schools to meet nationally approved standards by scoring well on a test that is based on a normative curve is a joke. Anyone who knows statistics knows that it is impossible for all children to succeed (or score in the highest percentile­) on a normative test. 50% of the students have to score below the mean on the curve and 50% have to score above. That means that if one school's scores increase, another school's scores have to decrease to fill in the curve.  So even teaching to the test won't ensure that everyone scores well and finishes first in the big Race to the Top.

Let's get real. I don't agree that money should be cut, laying off teachers while needing to hire new ones is counterpro­ductive. However, there does need to be a substantiv­e conversati­on about how our federal money should be used--Race to the Top is no solution to Obama's Sputnik moment in education.