Race to the Top gets an F

02-14-2011

Opinion by Diane Ravitch/National Journal

Diane Ravitch is a research professor of education at New York University

Race to the Top is a terrible precedent for federal funding. For one reason, it replaces the principle of equity (funding the students with the greatest needs) with the spurious notion of a "race," with winners and losers. We want a generation of winners, not a few states that reap the rewards of federal funding because they hire slick grant writers. Actually those states that "won" Race to the Top won a pig in a poke. Many districts will spend more to implement its mandates than the federal dollars they receive. Worse, nothing in the Race to the Top is based on evidence, research, or practice. Closing schools is not a school improvement strategy. Merit pay sounds good in theory but never works in practice. Charter schools do not produce better results than regular public schools. The NAACP and five other civil rights groups criticized RTTT for emphasizing a competition rather than equity (more...)

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Race to the Top gets an F

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