Federal education grant could mean tighter standards

Click here to read the school district requirements for federal grant.

All the talk of a potential $4.35 billion federal reform grant to come to the Sunshine State from the national Race to the Top competition has made some nervous about the future of Florida’s education system.
While many welcome the idea of a potential $4.35 billion boost, others worry that the stipulations imposed on the state and the district alike are going to be troublesome.
The Race to the Top competition — headed by the U.S. Department of Education — challenged all 50 states to propose bold education reforms. These reform proposals should focus on helping struggling schools, focusing on the effectiveness of teaching professionals and education leaders, build internationally recognized education standards and assessments, and improving state education data systems.
The state or states deemed as the winner will receive funding to implement their comprehensive education reform plans.
Florida was recently named a finalist in phase one of the race, and was one of only 16 finalists chosen from a pool of 41 applicants to proceed to the next stage of the competition.
Florida DOE officials are defending their proposal in Washington, D.C., this week. The state is now up against the 16 other finalists.
Frank Waller, director of Jackson County’s middle and secondary schools, addressed school board members in a special workshop Tuesday and explained that ultimately this competition is part of a larger, national move toward unification of all state school systems.
“The U.S. DOE is wanting Florida to be teaching the same as New York, which is the same as Kansas and Texas,” Waller said. “Some states have already moved to national standards, but not all of us.”
The move to a more unified national education system is referred to as the Common Core State Standards initiative. These standards will define for every school system the knowledge and skills students should have within their kindergarten through 12th grades.
Waller explained to board members some of the intricacies of this competition and what would be expected of the district should Florida win.
Meanwhile, district education leaders and teacher union officials statewide are frantic trying to prepare for the potential win.
“So what does this mean to us,” Waller asked. “It means a great deal to us as a district and to the state at large.”
If the state were to win Race to the Top, the money will be divided in half, with 50 percent going to the state education department, and the other half would be divided amongst all participating local education agencies, or LEAs.
Jackson County is a participating LEA, along with all but four school districts in Florida .
Waller explained that being an LEA means Jackson County would see a portion of award money, but it also means the local school district has some work to do. However, school officials discussed at the workshop that although the district is a willing participant, at some point the requirements imposed upon the state and district may become mandatory anyway.
“The way this looks to me, these changes are headed our way regardless, might as well see the money for it if we can,” school board member Terry Nichols said.
The biggest commitment of participating LEAs, should Florida be a winner, is the creation of a document DOE is calling a “final scope of work.”
This document outlines the district’s input on the new state reform plan that Florida is currently defending in Washington. School officials will have about 90 days from the announcement of the competition winner to complete this document.
Waller pointed out to school board members a few potential problem areas for the district.
Each district must modify school schedules to accommodate planning periods for teachers by grade level (elementary) or subject area (secondary), without reducing time devoted to student instruction.
For example, in elementary schools, all first grade teachers would have to have planning periods together once a week, so lesson plans were in sync. This also requires secondary schools to have all teachers in core subject areas plan together, as well.
“This is going to be a scheduling nightmare for administration,” Waller said.
In addition, each district must conduct annual “multi-metric” evaluations of teachers and principals, to determine if each teacher or administrator is “effective” or not. The definition of an “effective” teacher will be decided by the state.
Each district will be required to implement differentiated pay schedules for teachers and administrators.
The DOE report cites that this new pay schedule “ties the most significant gains in salary to effectiveness demonstrated by annual evaluations, rather than to degree level or years of experience.”
Categories for determining differentiated pay are additional academic responsibilities, school demographics, critical shortage areas, and level of job performance difficulties , which would include working in high-poverty, high-minority, or persistently lowest-achieving schools.
With these three topics before the board and attendees at Tuesday’s meeting, the room was slightly tense.
Katherine Stone of the Jackson County Education Association was in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting, and presented JCEA’s standpoint. There has been opposition from union members on some of the proposed reforms. But as many stated, ultimately it is out of the district’s hands.
“We have no choice but to make this work,” Nichols said. “This needs to be a collaborative effort between us, because as you can see this is much bigger than us.”