‘Race to the Top’ Winner Gets an ‘F’

Flickr/ <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/4005631298/">WoodleyWonderWorks</a> (Creative Commons)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Secretary of Education Arne Duncan awarded Tennessee $500 million in the first round of President Obama’s $4 billion Race to the Top competition, yet the volunteer state’s academic standards were given an failing grade of “F” in a new study by Harvard University researchers. Study authors Paul E. Peterson and Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadón assessed states’ education standards by comparing 4th- and 8th-grade students’ performance on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress—a standardized test considered the gold standard in testing efficacy—with their performance on the standardized tests administered by each state individually, tests whose levels of difficulty vary considerably.

Peterson and Lastra-Anadón found that 90 percent of Tennessee’s 4th-graders demonstrated proficiency in math on the state’s own assessment, while only 28 percent achieved at that same level on the national exam, a result that indicates Tennessee’s state education standards have been watered down. “With such divergence, the concept of ‘standard’ has lost all meaning,” the researchers concluded. “It’s as if a yardstick can be 36 inches long in most of the world, but 3 inches long in Tennessee.”

Delaware, the only other Race to the Top winner, received a grade of “C minus” for the disparity between its students’ scores on NAEP and their performance on Delaware’s state standardized test. Five states—Hawaii, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico and Washington—earned grades of “A” in the study, while Alabama and Nebraska joined Tennessee in the group of states who received grades of “F.”

Duncan chose Tennessee and Delaware as winners from among 16 finalists for Race to the Top, a competition that encourages states to fight for federal education funds by pledging to institute school reforms favored by Duncan, like expanding charter schools or evaluating teachers based on students’ gains on standardized tests. The results of this study, and another recently released report, raise concerns about what Duncan is rewarding with the $4 billion carrot he’s been dangling in front of budget-crunched states. At the very least, the Harvard report adds to the debate over whether Duncan is promoting true education excellence and whether his approach will work for the nation’s students. “Curricula can be perfectly designed,” Peterson and Lastra-Anadón write, “but if the proficiency bar is set very low, little is accomplished by setting the content standards in the first place.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate