Georgia using RTTT funds to focus on teachers in the classroom

Read this report from the AJC:

Student test scores will play a bigger role in Georgia teacher evals

Hoping to attract and keep top teachers in public schools, Georgia is changing the way educators are hired, paid and rated through a new evaluation system with far greater emphasis on student performance.

The changes are spurred by the $400 million Race to the Top grant, a program introduced by the Obama administration to jump-start school reform nationwide. Georgia won the grant in August; in return it pledged to rethink public school policy, including creating a new evaluation system for all teachers. For subjects where students take standardized tests, 50 percent of the teacher’s performance would be based on their test scores. School leaders will also be judged by test scores when the new model rolls out in 26 districts this fall.

“We strongly believe that the most important thing in a student’s education is the quality of the teacher in the classroom,” said Erin Hames, who will oversee the plan’s implementation as a deputy chief of staff for Gov.-elect Nathan Deal. “The heart of education improvement in Georgia has to be focused on the classroom and classroom teachers.”

It looks like maybe, just maybe, the state will take the bull by the horns and implement policies that will force school districts to put their money in the classroom. Hopefully, these new RTTT rules will encourage DCSS to rebalance where they are spending education dollars—away from administrators and directly in support of students and teachers.

Georgia granted $400 million in RTTT funds

So, it looks like we finally "won"!  Whoopee... I am still insulted that the government thinks schools should have to compete for funding.  Does the government make any other department jump through these kinds of hoops?  I'd like to hear about it, if so.

Anyways -- guys - here's the facts according to the AJC.

• Georgia has been awarded $400 million to invest in education reforms at the state level and in five metro districts and 21 others, having landed a spot in the winner’s circle in President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top competition.
• The metro Atlanta school districts that have signed on to pilot Georgia’s reforms include the city of Atlanta and Cherokee, Clayton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties.
• Perdue said the $400 million will be split between the state Department of Education and 26 local school districts that signed on as participants in Georgia’s Race to the Top application. State officials will be traveling to Washington to learn details, including when to expect the money.
• The state will use its money for professional training, a statewide system for tracking student achievement and development of teacher evaluation systems, the governor said.
• Local school systems will develop their own programs to improve standards and test scores, with success being measured through data collected from statewide, uniform tests, he said.
• “We are going to use this $400 million to literally show what we can do in transforming education,” he said.
• The governor’s office has said that Race to the Top money cannot be used to offset the millions of dollars’ worth of budget cuts to education in recent years. But Brad Bryant, the new state superintendent of schools, told reporters Tuesday that a school system might be able to bring back some teachers if its plans require more teachers or more days of instruction.
• Gwinnett school officials will be concentrating on three initiatives they believe can most improve student achievement: teacher effectiveness, leader effectiveness and personnel evaluation, said School Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks.
• Atlanta Public Schools will be exploring ways to restructure teacher rewards and compensation for its most effective teachers, said spokeswoman Morieka V. Johnson.

No word on how DeKalb plans to spend their share. Any guesses?

NEA's Delegates Vote 'No Confidence' in Race to the Top

From Education Week --

After a protracted debate, delegates to the National Education Association approved a new business item today that takes a position of "no confidence" in the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top guidelines and in the use of competitive grants as a basis for the reauthorization of ESEA.

It was a symbolic slam on the Obama administration. But as with NEA President Dennis Van Roekel's keynote speech, it stopped short of actually calling out the U.S. president, a supporter of the program. And the debate over the item provided the clearest picture yet of both the internal and external difficulties the NEA faces pushing against an education agenda promoted by a Democratic administration, rather than a Republican one. . . .

The author of the NBI 2, Phil Rumore, president of the Buffalo, N.Y., affiliate, got applause when he was introducing the resolution: "Some people are going to be mad at us if we pass this. Well let the word get out," he said. The program, he added, would exacerbate policies that "brutalize our students with standardized tests, which in my opinion is like giving someone blood tests until they die."

From another supporter: "The Race to the Top is a gun with bullets in it to take out teachers, public education, and the union itself."

Camille Zombro, the head of the San Diego affiliate, seemed to have the last word. "Teachers would never have put together a program like Race to the Top," she said. "Even in states that are trying to make lemonade, ... you were still given a lemon."

===
url link to entire article:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2010/07/neas_delegates_vote_no_confide_2.html