Race to the Top: New Focus on Charter Innovation

Final Race to the Top guidelines are out. In several documents, totaling over 1000 pages, this thing is a mammoth, and we’ll have more to say after a line-by-line reading. But the major points look pretty good for reformers in general and charters specifically. DOE listened to the good advice it got. We’re concerned about a few points, but overall this is huge:  the best combination of big money and good ideas in the modern ed-reform era. Major points of concern to charter folks:

Turnarounds: For those who’ve been worried that charter operators would be dragooned into the turnaround business - -and for the rest of us who worried that states would ignore the broader role of charters in reform - - this is the biggest change.  The new doc retains chartering under the “restart” turnaround model, but also scores charters under the general reform/innovation section. 
 
Charter criteria:  It’s not enough for a state to say that they do OK by their charter schools, or that there’s no cap. The doc allocates a serious 40 points to “successful conditions for high performing charter schools,” with criteria that include no effective cap on number of schools, student enrollment, or other constraints; very specific requirements about quality charter authorizing; equitable funding; and support for facilities including dollars, access, and ability to share in “bonds, mill levies, and other supports” (which for non-LEA charters could produce real breakthroughs).

 And there’s a great passage demonstrating that Arne and Co. get a key point that we’ve made repeatedly:  When we talk about expansion of chartering either for turnarounds or for providing high-needs kids with new options, we’re not talking about randomly opening the spigot, but asking the very best to flourish and replicate.  Here’s how they put it:  Notwithstanding research showing that charter schools on average perform similarly to traditional public schools, a growing body of evidence suggests that high-quality charter schools can be powerful forces for increasing student achievement, closing achievement gaps, and spurring educational innovation.

Because non-charter states yelped about their own innovations being excluded, however, the doc allows them to propose “autonomous schools” under the charter criterion, which could set up a potential for more ‘faux charters. ” But, DOE is pretty clear that these schools have to have control of staff, time, and budget at the school site.  And, more to the point, states must have charter laws in order to earn points on 4 out of the 5 evidentiary requirements in this section. So in reality non-charter states must still enact charter laws in order to be competitive for these funds.
 
Autonomy:   Speaking of autonomy, we’d have preferred some very direct language about charter autonomy being protected under state reform plans, but it’s good to see Invitational Priority #6 which says that the Sec wants to see applications that provide schools in general “with flexibility and autonomy” in selecting staff, altering the school day, controlling budgets, and other factors.  So, for those concerned about states, districts, and unions clamping down on charter autonomy, this priority is a statement from the feds that all schools need certain core elements of autonomy to operate successfully in the best interest of students. 

Evidence of Support:   As before, participating LEAs including charters have to sign on to the reform proposals;  but now the doc asks for state charter association signoff as well. 

Alternative certification:  Under “Great Teachers and Leaders” they want to see new “high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals” that include providers other than institutions of higher education. That opens the door to more innovations like the High Tech High program for teacher certification in California.
 
Scoring: See below for one caveat, but we’re happy that DOE took advice from the Alliance and others to put more emphasis on track record and less on promises. The scoring rubric now has a 52-48 split in favor of “accomplishments” over “plans.”
 
All this said, we will keep an eye on one potential trouble spot. There’s a whiff of peanut butter in the table of potential grant sizes published along with the package, especially combined with the scoring rubric. There doesn’t appear to be any particular threshold that a state needs to surmount in order to be competitive, and we hope that it won’t be possible for states simply to amass a sufficient point score from the least-significant parts of the package. Arne has said repeatedly that he does not plan to spread the dollars around evenly (the “peanut butter” thing, for newbie readers), and we hope he sticks to his guns and limits grants – especially in the critical first round – to states that are serious about reform.
 
Watch this space for more on the full package shortly.