The race to Kumbaya
Blog by Rick Hess/Education Week
Perhaps they should have called it the "Race to Consensus" or the "Race to Stakeholder Buy-In." Upon hearing there were only two round one Race to the Top (RTT) winners, I thought Duncan deserved some credit for recovering his footing after the fiasco of naming 16 round one finalists. Then, when I heard the two were Delaware and Tennessee, I had second thoughts. And they brought to mind my observation from a few months back (and restated this morning) that the numerical marker was a terrific tool for Duncan. All he had to do to get laurels was limit the number of blue ribbons--and now he's done that. (more...)