[4 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2016 In 2009, President…]
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4 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2016 In 2009, President Obama issued a fact sheet outlining his new education reform plan. Race to the Top, as it is called, has four key areas: rigorous standards and assessments, adoption of better data sys tems for reporting, support for teachers and school leaders to become more effec tive, and a plan for rigorous interventions when a school fails to meet standards. In the seven years since this announcement, the results range from somewhat satis factory to outright disastrous.
Obama wrote a preamble to the fact sheet on July 24, 2009, which stated: “America will not succeed in the 21st century unless we do a far better job of educating our sons and daughters. And the race starts today. I am issuing a chal lenge to our nation’s governors and school boards, principals and teachers, businesses and non-profits, parents and students: if you set and enforce rigorous and challenging standards and assess ments; if you put outstanding teachers at the front of the classroom; if you turn around failing schools—your state can win a Race to the Top grant that will not only help students outcompete work ers around the world, but let them fulfill their God-given potential.”
As stated, Obama’s goal for this pro gram was to ensure that students could outcompete workers worldwide. But as a goal for educators, it set an ill-conceived precedent involving winners and losers.
Kevin K. Kumashiro, in his 2012 book “Bad Teacher,” outlined the shortcom ings of recent federal educational re form plans: “Politicians and pundits today seem to be unable to talk about educational reform in terms other than competitions, such as being the best in the world or racing to the top, in which only some can win while all others must lose. Even reforms that seem to say that everyone can win are nonetheless creat ing winners and losers, such as No Child Left Behind’s (the federal act of 2001) mandate of 100% proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014—a rate that has never been reached by any nation