Education Race to Top Hits Bottom

Race to the Top has been another federal program where the results have been nearly anything but those intended, where stimulus as education has not been consistently successful despite $4 billion gone. Federal increases in spending that don't result in increased levels of success or even improvement should be looked at with even more of a critical eye, and no program should be immune to financial cuts in times such as these where the future is unknown.

You've probably been in an argument and, not very confident about your point, resorted to rhetorically blitzing your opponent by just insisting you were irrefutably right. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been employing a similar tactic with the "Race to the Top," a competition pitting states against each other in a grab for $4 billion in "stimulus" dough. Duncan has been flatly declaring RTTT a triumph.

"The Race to the Top has been an extraordinary success," Duncan trumpeted in last week's announcement that Tennessee and Delaware had won the Race's first round. "This historic program has been a catalyst for education reform across this country."

Examining the first-round winners reveals why Duncan is going right to declaring victory.

Maybe the one-size-fits-all federal standards are the problem, not the solution.

The first thing one notices is that RTTT isn't about bold change. Indeed, as Duncan conceded when he announced the victors, what put Delaware and Tennessee in the winners' circle wasn't embracing cutting-edge reforms, but getting all districts and teachers' unions to endorse their applications.

"Perhaps most importantly, every one of the districts in Delaware and Tennessee is committed to implementing the reforms in Race to the Top, and they have the support of the state leaders as well as their unions," Duncan said.

Now, if you want a revolution you don't bolster the regime in power. But that's exactly what demanding union buy-in does. After all, it's teachers' unions that have most effectively fought real accountability because it is largely their members who would be held to account.

More: Education Race to Top Hits Bottom | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary

Maybe it's time to cut losses and try something different for some real change...