President Barack Obama has plenty of controversial work before him. He is attempting to finish two expensive wars, pass health insurance reform and end ""don't ask, don't tell."" In a country with a devastatingly powerful moderate majority, Obama must pick and choose his political battles, pushing for some liberal issues and coasting through with other moderate proposals.
Unfortunately, it seems Obama has sacrificed education, the issue most central to our future success as a nation, to the side of appeasement.
Obama cares about the state of education. Every day, his two young daughters keep him cognizant of the next generation of leaders and their current well-being.
But the president's Race to the Top competition for American schools is a misguided plan, shoddily pieced together from the back burner. Race to the Top's mastermind, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, has never worked as a teacher or principal.
Race to the Top admirably intends to increase teacher accountability and improve our deeply flawed education system, but the plans of implementation are shaky and short-sighted.
Improving on No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top actually provides start-up money for new programs. This is a step forward, but only one step. We cannot have a one- step race. This isn't the Race to the Top of One Stair.
Like the stimulus package, whose greatest achievement was saving schools and teachers across the country, Race to the Top can provide a boost of funding to select states. However, much of the funds are for start-up costs, like Madison's plan to implement four-year-old kindergarten in fall 2011. Race to the Top fails to provide continued funding once the initial goals are achieved. With school districts across the state and the nation facing daunting budget cuts, how can they be expected to assume permanent expenses of new programs? Beneficial programs might shut down, more cuts might be made from other vital departments or state and federal government would be forced to shell out even more to keep programs running. Education is expensive, and the government, along with much of the school-stingy public, needs to acknowledge this.
According to Green Bay Education Association President David Harswick, many districts were initially excited to learn about the $4 billion in Race to the Top funds, only to become confused and worried.
""How much of your soul are you willing to sell to obtain money when you were not part of the planning process?"" asked Harswick.
A better, more long-term strategy could have been designed if the planning process had included educators' opinions from the beginning. Teachers unions, superintendant associations, and school boards across Wisconsin, three groups who rarely see eye to eye, agree that the state government should have done more to include experienced educators in the process, according to Harswick.
Perhaps the scariest piece of Race to the Top is the threat to schools in bad shape. Introducing competition to the funding process makes sense if you coldly consider education a business model, another free market entity subject to the unforgiving rules of capitalism. But schools do not have a bottom line of dollars and cents. In no way should a school district's primary concern be cutting corners to save taxpayers a few nickels. A school's bottom line, its reason for existence, is the children it educates and prepares for a successful life.
Oversight and accountability must be the primary focus of education reform, not introducing ideas that smack of corporation-vocabulary included to appease free market conservatives.
True, Wisconsin is eligible for hundreds of millions in Race to the Top funds. But the competition has become which state can comply with the most new federal guidelines. A poor student in Milwaukee doesn't care whether or not Wisconsin law allows teachers to be evaluated based on test scores. That student needs a better school. Even if Wisconsin is lucky to be one of the states to receive funding, the money may still not be distributed to needy small districts, but instead to districts able to jump through legal hoops.
Every level of government must continue to press accountability on educators and school administrators, but through more creative and representative ways than bubble tests. Increased funding must not be one-time-only, doled out to the states and districts able to maneuver the most legal obstacles. Children and school needs are not random or temporary. School funding should not be either.
The price of continuing to poorly educate huge numbers of Americans is much more taxing on our economy and our future. We cannot afford to be outdone by rapidly growing powers like India and China.
A quality education helps form the foundation of an active democracy, a competitive market economy and engaged international leadership. Let's think long-term here.
Jamie Stark is a sophomore majoring in journalism. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
