Obama Education Plan Links Student-Teacher Performance

Bonnie Goldstein

Woman Up Editor

Posted:

08/17/09

Republican governors have tried at their peril to refuse federal cash, but the economic stimulus package and federal purse known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has given President Obama's administration an effective carrot to persuade state governments to conform to his federal agendas.

New York Times education reporter Sam Dillon wrote Sunday about several state legislatures rethinking their regulations in order to qualify for a cut of stimulus money for their educational programs.

President Bush's controversial key education program, No Child Left Behind, emphasized student performance on standardized tests and penalized schools with reading and math proficiency scores below annual goals. In response, teacher unions in a number of states successfully pushed to prohibit linking test performance with teacher and principal promotion evaluations and pay. But Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan thinks at least some correlation between student performance and teacher assessment is necessary. In June, Duncan called out California for placing "a firewall between students and teacher data."

Now educators are consternated to find in proposed language for eligibility that the Race to the Top stimulus package, with $4.3 billion to grant, requires a lack of "barriers to linking data on student achievement . . . for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation," putting California, New York and Wisconsin temporarily out of luck. Wisconsin is debating whether to lift the restriction, New York is arguing it indeed complies, and the California Senate Education Committee has scheduled a hearing later this month to explore legislation that will "clarify the law."

"We'll do everything in our power," Chairwoman Gloria Romero told Dillon, "to make sure that California is in compliance with the expectations of the Obama administration."