new.every1graduates.orgnew.every1graduates.org/.../2015/01/RTT_CaseStudy.docx · Web viewIt also revoked Oklahoma’s for pulling out of Common Core State Standards (Bidwell, 2014)

Running head: RACE TO THE TOP CASE STUDY 1

Analysis of Race to the

Top: A Case Study

Rebeca Gamez

Amanda Inns

Elizabeth Kim

Audrey Moshfeghian

Daniel Princiotta

RACE TO THE TOP CASE STUDY 2

Introduction

This case study provides a summary of two of the Obama Administration’s key education

initiatives: Race to the Top (RTT) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Waivers. First, it provides

an overview of the initiatives and information on their origins. Then, it discusses the extent of the

evidence-base supporting the initiatives at the time of their development, as well as elements of

the evidence-base that suggested potential trouble ahead. The case study continues by discussing

the obstacles the Obama administration faced in enacting their policies and the approaches the

administration took to overcome those obstacles. Then, the study reports on the real and

perceived impacts of the policies to date. The case study closes with lessons learned from the

development and implementation of RTT and NCLB Waivers. Heeding these lessons learned

will enable the new administration to successfully chart a new course for the nation’s education

policy, navigate the current turmoil in the education policy arena, and implement education

initiatives that support student success, thereby strengthening the nation’s economic footing.

Origins and Key Policies

Race to the Top (RTT) is an education competition within the United States initiated by

the Obama Administration for $4.3 billion in funding. Released in 2009, it was part of the

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. States were encouraged to apply for funds from this

stimulus grant that would help them achieve their education goals as well as reorient their

education goals to more career and college readiness and common standards as opposed to the

objectives mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act which encouraged across the board

“proficiency” (Duncan, A., 2009). The White House and Department of Education claimed the

contest would help states “focus on ends, not means” by using incentives rather than sanctions

(Layton, 2014). Under NCLB, states were facing pressure to meet benchmarks that would incur


loss of funding and other consequences if not met. The President and Secretary of Education

Arne Duncan desired to shift the role of the DOE to that of “capacity and innovation builder, not

compliance monitor” (Race to the Top Program Executive Summary, 2009).

In the competition, states would propose educational policies aligned with the

administration’s goals of performance-based standards for effective teachers and administrators,

Common Core student standards, promoting charter schools, turning around lowest-performing

schools, and building data systems to improve instruction (Unions v. Race to the Top, 2010).

Each category was allotted a point value: 138 points- Great Teachers and Leaders, 125 points-

State Success Factors, 70 points- Standards and Assessments, 55 points- General Selection

Criteria, 50 points- Turning Around the Lowest Achieving Schools, 47 points- Data Systems to

Support Instruction, and 15 points- Prioritization of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering,

and Math). Those schools with the highest number of points were issued funds according to their

share of the federal population of school age children (Race to the Top Program Executive

Summary, 2009).

Leading up to RTT, a few key education leaders and reformers had already begun a

campaign of change in education, specifically in regards to the creation of Common Core

standards for students and performance-based standards for teachers and principals. Teach for

America and the New Teacher Project (TNTP) had spent a decade or more arguing for more

exigent standards to be put into place for teachers based on students’ performance and for the

removal of the “last in, first out” law which left enthusiastic new teachers out of jobs and

tenured, less than stellar teachers in place (Brill, S., 2010). TNTP even published a book, The

Widget Effect, which identified the need for “more rigorous” teacher evaluations (Weisberg et


al., 2009). At the same time, new evidence supporting the effectiveness of charter schools was

furthering the crusade to remove state caps on the number of charters allowed (Layton, 2014).

Of particular note are Gene Wilhoit (director of the Council of Chief State School

Officers) and David Coleman (cofounder of Student Achievement Partners) who were each

championing education reform through creation of common standards. Together, the two men

met with the Gates Foundation and proposed a solution to the standards dilemma, offering that a

set of common standards that included college and career readiness should be devised and

adopted by all states (Layton, 2014). The Gates Foundation agreed to fund the endeavor via the

Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association and aided in the

promotion of the Common Core to the states (Dillon, 2009). The effort was so successful that by

2009, all 50 states had voluntarily approved of the Common Core. At this point in time,

President Obama appointed Arne Duncan, who had been involved with the Gates Foundation on

other projects in Chicago where he was CEO of Chicago Public Schools, to be the Secretary of

Education. Secretary Duncan then moved forward in creating a national education plan for the

administration that standardized Common Core and fostered performance-based teacher

standards, another ideal supported by the Gates Foundation (Layton, 2014; Brill, 2010). He also

appointed support staff comprised of many individuals who had previous connections to the

Gates Foundation.

APLUS- Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success- is another effort by the Obama

administration to help states avoid the penalties that would be incurred by 2014 should they not

reach the goals stipulated by NCLB. It offered states a waiver to the NCLB and money in the

form of block grants to continue funding their educational needs that were being supported by

NCLB (McNeil and Klein, 2011). In order to receive funds, however, states had to adopt


standards for college and career readiness, increase academic proficiency (not necessarily to the

level required by NCLB), test students annually in reading and math in grades 3-8 and high

school, focus improvement efforts on the most troubled schools, create guidelines for teacher

evaluations based in part on student performance, and disaggregate data and set performance

targets for key subgroups. Essentially, the Obama Administration was offering states another

avenue through which they could avoid the consequences of NCLB and align themselves more

closely to the goals of RTT (Slack, M., 2012).

Evidence Base

At the time that Race to the Top was announced, there was an uneven evidence base to

support the required initiatives. The policymakers had access to research regarding each of the

main components of RTT, yet the support for some of the required elements of RTT was weak.

That research for each initiative of RTT is described below.

Adopting Common Standards & Assessments

Race to the Top required states to adopt a set of common standards and implement a

common, high-quality assessments matching those standards. Separately from RTT, there was an

effort led by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School

Officers (CCSSO) to develop the Common Core Standards. By summer of 2009, all fifty states

and the District of Columbia had committed to the process. This simplified this requirement,

because the standards were already being supported by all states.

The evidence supporting common standards breaks into two main categories: college

readiness and international competition. The college readiness argument developed as more

students were graduating with high school diplomas and still didn’t have skills to enable them to

succeed in college or enter the workforce. Standards were developed that proposed to prepare


high school graduates for college and career success (Achieve, The Education Trust, & Thomas

B. Fordham Foundation, 2004; Conley et al, 2009; Conley, 2003).

In addition to college readiness, the common standards attempted to improve the

performance of U.S. students on international assessments. Several studies examined high-

performing countries such as Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong and discovered that successful

countries had rigorous, common standards, which the United States lacked (Ginsburg, Cooke,

Leinwand, Noell, & Pollock, 2005; Ginsburg, Leinwand, Anstrom, & Pollock, 2005; Leinwand

& Decker, 2009). Developing and adopting high-quality standards such as these countries was

believed to be one way to improve U.S. performance on international assessments.

Once new standards were adopted that addressed college readiness and mirrored the rigor

of high-performing countries such as Singapore, new assessments would have to be developed to

match these standards. There was evidence suggesting that the current assessments were poorly

aligned to the standards they claimed to measured (Resnick, Rothman, Slattery & Vranek, 2003).

Overall, the evidence supporting common standards and high-quality assessments was

compelling, though perhaps not conclusive. The knowledge at the time justified the decision to

include this in RTT.

Evaluating Effective Teachers & Principals

Another requirement of RTT focused on staffing schools with effective teachers and

principals. At the time, there was a focus on a human capital model of education – that teachers

mattered more than anything else. Yet that idea conflicted with the way schools treated teachers,

as interchangeable parts that were all equal, and where little was done to improve or eliminate

ineffective teachers (Weisberg et al., 2009). RTT was attempting to change that

“interchangeable” approach to teachers.


There was wide agreement that teacher effectiveness mattered (Darling-Hammond, 2000;

Sanders & Rivers, 1996; Sanders & Horn, 1998), but there was little consensus on what

constituted an effective teacher (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Kane, Rockoff, & Staiger, 2008;

Neild & Farley‐Ripple, 2008; Teddlie, Kirby, & Stringfield, 1989; Xu & others, 2008).

In addition, RTT supported performance pay and value-added models of evaluation.

There was limited research supporting performance pay (Winters, Greene, Ritter, & Marsh,

2008) and the research on value-added models was mixed (McCaffrey, Lockwood, Koretz, &

Hamilton, 2003). While there was evidence that value-added models held promise (Doran, 2003;

Hershberg, Simon, & Lea-Kruger, 2004; Mahoney, 2004), there was additional evidence that

they were not yet ready for widespread implementation due to validity and methodological

concerns as well as not being user-friendly (Amrein-Beardsley, 2008; Doran & Fleischman,

2005; Kupermintz, 2003). Regardless of what the scholarly evidence stated, value-added

methods were already in use in several states, such as Tennessee, though the validity of these

systems was unclear (Kupermintz, 2003).

On the whole, it was not definitely established what constituted effective teaching and

how to identify those high-quality, effective teachers.. However, the argument was logical and

appealed to many, so the need for effective teachers was included in RTT, as well as the

structural supports needed for evaluation – high quality assessments and data systems.

Building Data Systems

Race to the Top required states to develop statewide, longitudinal data systems. This

allowed states and schools to evaluate teachers, schools, and programs and identify areas of

strength and weakness (Data Quality Campaign, 2006). These data systems were key to

evaluating teacher effectiveness and were not universally available before RTT. The research


around these data systems supported their development, because they improve the efficiency,

accuracy and access to data and allow the use of data to ask--and answer--meaningful questions

(Bergner & Smith, 2007; Kugle & Smith, 2006a; Kugle & Smith, 2006b; Kugle & Smith, 2007a;

Kugle & Smith, 2007b; Kugle & Smith, 2008). There was convincing evidence and a reasonable

explanation for data systems that warranted their inclusion in RTT.

Turning Around Lowest Performing Schools

Race to the Top had a special focus on low-performing schools in the state, so that they

needed to be identified and addressed. Four models were approved for intervening in these

schools: turnaround, restart, transformation and closure. Research on these models was scattered.

The What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide identified evidence-based practices that

could help educators and administrators improve low-performing schools and suggested that

schools change leadership and staff, focus on improvement with data, and generate quick wins;

however their evidence for these recommendations was minimal (Herman, Dawson, Thomas,

Greene, & Redding, 2008). In addition, changes must impact the quality of student learning

(Newmann & Wehlage, 1995) and require flexibility, resources and support (Calkins, Guenther,

Belfiore, & Lash, 2007). However, turnaround often fails (Beer & Nohria, 2000; Calkins,

Guenther, Belfiore, & Lash, 2007; Kotter, 1995) and closing schools doesn’t always improve

student outcomes (De la Torre & Gwynne, 2009). High performing, high poverty schools could

provide some guidance for how to successfully improve the low-performing schools (Duke,

2006), but in general while there were examples of success using these models, there was no

evidence of how to use these models at scale. While the evidence was lacking, it was

unacceptable to continue to allow these schools to continue to underserve students, so it could be

argued that any attempt to improve these schools was necessary.


Increasing Charter Schools

The final major component of RTT was the support for charter schools. States needed to

allow the growth and development of charter schools. Some states previously hadn’t allowed any

charter schools, and other states had limits to how many charter schools could be approved. RTT

wanted to encourage charter schools as a way to raise the quality of education and allow

innovation in schools. This decision to dramatically increase charter schools was unsupported by

the evidence at the time.

Charter schools have two ideas that mostly come from the business world. First, charters

are thought to provide choice for parents, and the reasoning is that parents will enroll their

children in high-quality charter schools and avoid poorly-performing charter schools, so that in

the marketplace of schools, low-quality charter schools will close due to lack of enrollment. That

idea had limited support (Hanushek, Kain, Rivkin, & Branch, 2007) and doesn’t hold up.

Charter schools are also thought to encourage innovation and high-quality learning due to

increased freedom from regulations. However, the quality of charter schools vary greatly by

location (CREDO, 2009). While there are studies supporting charter schools, (Booker, Gilpatric,

Gronberg, & Jansen, 2007; Hoxby, 2004; Hoxby & Rockoff, 2004; Solmon, Paark, & Garcia,

2001), there are also studies demonstrating lower achievement at charter schools (Bifulco &

Ladd, 2006; Braun, Jenkins, & Grigg, 2006; Eberts & Hollenbeck, 2001; Nelson, Rosenberg, &

Van Meter, 2004). In addition, there are more studies showing how charter school results are

mixed, depending on school, grade, subject, or other factors (Barr, Sadovnik, & Visconti, 2006;

Betts & Tang, 2008; Hanushek, Kain, Rivkin, & Branch, 2002; Lubienski & Lubienski, 2006;

Sass, 2006). The wealth of evidence about charter schools painted a complicated picture and


showed that RTT likely did not have the conclusive evidence regarding student outcomes to

support such dramatic growth in charters.

Challenges to RTT

Although the Race to the Top initiative adopted an incentivized approach that contrasted

sharply with the punitive implications of NCLB, it did not go without its opposition. Both RTT

and NCLB waivers, which are founded on promises of more systematized accountability with

robust data systems and an adoption of explicit college and career ready standards, met

dissention from a wide audience. Outspoken education historian Diane Ravitch was not diffident

in expressing her disapproval of what she perceived as the overemphasis on testing, and

particularly took issue with the notion that RTT was promoting early testing (Ravitch, 2015).

The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant competition is an outgrowth

of the RTT competition, which focuses on improving early learning and development programs

for young children, but the priorities of the grant indicate preference for assessments and rating

systems. Moreover, the emphasis on standards and accountability that undergird RTT and the

waiver guidelines seemed to offer very little reprieve from NCLB policies. Randi Weingarten,

president of the American Federation of Teachers, sharply commented on the seemingly circular

logic of the waivers: “the waiver guidance issued today says: No Child Left Behind failed, but

you can get out of it if you have college- and career-ready standards, high-stakes testing on those

standards, and teacher evaluations that rely heavily on testing" (Bidwell, 2014).

The issue of standards has also been divisive among states participating in RTT.

Although 46 states and the District of Columbia have agreed to adopt the Common Core, states

such as Virginia withdrew from the second round of competition because it did not want to

compromise their well-established, validated, and rigorous state standards, the Standards of


Learning (SOL), for what they perceived as an unvalidated, foreign Common Core which also

lacked appropriate assessment measures (Anderson & Helderman, 2010).

Unsurprisingly, RTT’s recommendation of tying teacher pay to performance met

pushback from teacher unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and the National

Education Association who contested that pay-for-performance was unfair and debilitating,

instead touting seniority or credentials as a basis for pay. Moreover, RTT appeared to put states

into a Catch-22 bind in which the application guidelines stipulated that states show that they

have the support of the same teacher unions that opposed much of the required change (Bowen,

2010).

School choice was another area in which much dissention emerged. The teacher unions

were not the only groups concerned about charter schools and school choice, but widespread

pushback came from a variety of groups. Groups such as the National Council of the Churches of

Christ vocalized their concerns in a letter to the president, insisting that “we are concerned today

when we hear the civil right to education being re-defined as the right to school choice” (Strauss,

2010). Thus, pushback against school choice came from a diverse array of audiences.

The question of school choice was not the sole concern regarding equity; others

questioned how equitably the awardees would distribute the grant funds to students in need. The

2012 Edition of the National Report Card, "Is School Funding Fair," issued by the Education

Law Center (ELC) presented a less than ideal portrait of how RTT awardees were using their

funds. The report found that all but three states provided no additional funds to educate students

in poverty (Baker, Sciarra, & Farrie, 2012). In fact, the average funding levels of the highest

poverty districts were actually lower than levels in the lowest poverty districts in most states. For

instance, North Carolina offered districts with no student poverty at an average of $11,111 per


pupil opposed to the $8,699 given to the highest poverty districts (Baker, Sciarra, & Farrie,

2012).

In response to calls for increased cognizance of how RTT is promoting educational

equity, President Obama proposed a new competitive fund entitled RTT Equity and Opportunity

for the 2015 fiscal year, in which $300 million would be parceled to grantees who could exhibit

plans that aggressively target opportunity and achievement gaps. Despite this well-meaning

gesture to address equity issues, the plan failed to receive funds for the fiscal year (Strauss,

2014).

The delineation between the private versus public has perennially sparked debate in our

nation’s educational history, and RTT was not exempt from this conversation. Some viewed

RTT and its quite specific recommendations for educational reform as a form of federal intrusion

into state affairs. A general sentiment of federal mistrust emanated among states; Governor Rick

Perry’s language in his statement illustrates such mistrust: “Texas is on the right path toward

improved education, and we would be foolish and irresponsible to place our children’s future in

the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in

Washington, virtually eliminating parents’ participation in their children’s education” (Bidwell,

2014).

The NCLB waivers similarly stirred division in the question of federal incentives

that override state positions. For instance, in 2013 the California Office of Reform

Education (CORE), a collection of eight districts in California, received an NCLB

waiver, which was an unusual move in light of the fact that the state itself had not

received a waiver. Commenting on this disunity within the state, Chris Minnich,

executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, characterized the CORE


waiver as “an unprecedented shift in the federal role in education — clearly usurping

state leadership” (Fensterwald, 2013). The waiver is the first that was not issued to a state

department of education and has caused tension among state chiefs of education, teachers

unions and some advocacy groups that view the waiver as rendering state and district

asunder.

Perhaps to address the growing concerns from conservatives and states that the federal

government was heavy handed in its involvement with state decisions about education, in 2013

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan adjusted the requirements of the NCLB waivers such

that they were looser: instead of a two year waiver period the waivers were shortened to one and

the requirements that states needed to show 1) they were doing a better job of ensuring low-

income and minority students were not disproportionately affected by ineffective teachers and 2)

that states would improve their use of federal funds for professional development were no longer

necessary. Although this opened new conversations about equity issues and state fiscal

accountability, the loosening of the NCLB waiver requirements appeared to be a gesture in

scaling back federal involvement in the operation of local education systems.

As RTT was a national competition that involved several raters, unsurprisingly the

question of the fairness and objectivity of the evaluations emerged. In April 2010, Economic

Policy Institute found that the selection of Delaware and Tennessee was subjective and arbitrary,

more a matter of bias or chance than a result of these states’ superior compliance with reform

policies (Peterson & Rothstein, 2010). Shortly after this report, in September 2010, the American

Enterprise Institute released another report finding disparities in RTT scores versus the education

reform track records and ratings of states from outside, independent sources such as the Data

Quality Campaign and Education Week’s Quality Counts (Bowen, 2010). The report further


applied regression analysis in order to ascertain the extent to which a state’s political climate

related to the RTT score, implicating the possibility that political bias may have infiltrated the

awards. The regression indicated that three components were statistically significant in

explaining a state’s first-round score: projected score based on education-reform track record,

having a Senate seat in play, and having a state governor seat in play. Although establishing a

causal link between political climates and RTT scores is unfounded, there were suspicions and

speculations about bias in the selection process. This may be in part because of the ambiguity of

some of the items in the scoring rubric for RTT applications. Bowen (2010) claims that

approximately 18% of the 30 criteria are subjective and elude ready quantification such as

“translating Local Education Agency participation into statewide impact” (A)(1)iii) and “using

broad stakeholder support” (A)(2)iii).

To assuage concerns about impartiality, Duncan assured that winners of RTT were

selected by teams of impartial education experts who had been fully vetted for potential conflicts

of interest and that he himself was mostly removed from the process (Stegal, 2010). While it is

difficult to evaluate the veracity of the impartiality allegations, they were nonetheless a topic that

generated much dispute.

As is evident from this non-exhaustive list of disagreement around RTT policies, the

initiative did not go without objection. While it may not have garnered much opposition at its

conception, gradual dissention and concern from parties accumulated throughout its

implementation. It is fair to consider then, despite these obstacles whether RTT was a successful

educational policy in increasing outcomes for students.


RTT’s Impact

This section describes the impact of RTT to date. In particular, it will address the

following questions: (a) What impact has RTT had on state education policy? (b) What impact

has RTT had on winning states so far? What is going well and what is not going well? and (c)

What kind of impact has RTT had at the school system level? It will also examine the public

perception of RTT’s impact, particularly in terms of key constituents affected by this competitive

grant program. RTT has received tremendous media coverage and think tank analysis, yet, most

of the discussion has centered on the program’s design, application, and reward process. Much

less attention and research has been devoted to analyzing its impact on state policy and its impact

at the district and school-level. Information on the impact of each particular component of RTT

on key student and teacher-level educational outcomes are, to our knowledge, non-existent. Part

of the reason why factual information on RTT impacts is so limited is because to win grants

states were strongly encouraged to make a host of complex changes that will take some time to

evaluate. The United States Department of Education, however, has committed itself to

providing more information about its impact by creating a five-year, $19 million evaluation

program, administered through the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional

Assistance (NCEE). So far, NCEE and the three organizations it has subcontracted –

Mathematica Policy Research, the American Institutes for Research (AIR), and Social Policy

Research Associates (SPRA) – has collected two years worth of data and has published one

report related to RTT titled, “State Requirements for Teacher Evaluation Policies Promoted by

Race to the Top” (NCEE, 2014). As such, to provide a preliminary analysis of RTT’s impact this

section will draw on published material from NCEE, as well as reports conducted by think tanks


and unpublished dissertations examining RTT. The first section examines public perception of

RTT’s impact on key constituents.

Public Perception of RTT’s Impact

In policy, as in life, perception often trumps reality. This is particularly true when it takes

substantial time to develop rigorous evidence of whether or not a policy is successful. Pundits,

politicians, education stakeholders, and opinion-leaders of all stripes will end up weighing in on

policies before hard evidence is in. In doing so, they can shape public opinion in important ways.

In fact, they can shape whether policies are seen as successes or failures and drive future policy

development and funding, even in the absence of strong evidence.

Perhaps because RTT supported right-leaning policies using left-leaning levels of federal

oversight, thought leaders from both the left and the right assailed the initiatives, arguing that

they were ineffective. For example, from the right, education researcher Rick Hess opined on

RTT that:

When launched, the $4.35 billion competition drew bipartisan cheers and was lauded as

an example of getting school reform right. Five years on, I see it more as a monument to

paper promises, bureaucratic ineptitude, and federal overreach. (Hess, 2014)

From the left, in their lessons learned report on RTT, the Broader Bolder Approach to Education

coalition argued that RTT states made unrealistic and unreasonable promises, RTT policies

failed to address gaps in the opportunity to learn between disadvantaged students and their more

advantaged counterparts, RTT failed to improve teacher quality, and it created state-district and

union-management conflicts that undermined progress (Weiss, 2013).


Because NCLB Waivers were affected administratively, outside of the traditional law-

making process, they drew the ire of many federal legislators--in particular, rightwing

Republicans. In fact, immediately before House Republicans voted to authorize a lawsuit against

President Obama for executive overreach, Representative Pete Sessions, Republican from Texas

and Chair of the House Rules Committee, cited the fact that Obama “ended accountability

provisions in No Child Left Behind,” to buttress his case against the President (Camera, 2014).

Although a report requested by the House Republicans and authored by the nonpartisan

Congressional Research Service found that NCLB waivers were, in fact, legal, the House

republicans sought to delegitimize the NCLB Waivers and Race to the Top in the eyes of the

U.S. public via their actions.

State-level policymakers, however, saw NCLB Waivers in a kinder light, as the waivers

enabled states to avoid deeming all of their schools as failing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress

under NCLB. This was true for many governors and chief state school officers--on both sides of

the partisan aisle. Take former Republican Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, as a case in point.

Widely known to be no fan of President Obama, Governor Brewer nevertheless touted her state’s

receipt of an NCLB waiver:

“The people of Arizona know what is best for Arizona schools. So, I'm grateful for this

reprieve from federal red tape, allowing our teachers and administrators the flexibility

they require to meet the needs of Arizona students.” (Project Vote Smart, 2012)

Another former governor, Christine Gregoire, Democrat from Washington state also touted the

flexibility provided by the waivers: “This waiver provides our school districts with the necessary

flexibility to improve student learning based on the students’ and their communities’ needs,”

(State of Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2012).


Of course, policymakers are ultimately responsible to their constituents--not thought

leaders, pundits or other politicians. A year after the launch of RTT, a 2010 poll by Harvard’s

Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) and Education Next found that a plurality

of Americans (46 percent) expressed no opinion (Education Next, 2010). Among those with an

opinion, 59 percent thought RTT was necessary to improve education while 41 percent thought

the policy was an unwarranted intrusion into state and local government. More recent Phi Delta

Kappan / Gallup polling suggests that the general public is less supportive of education reforms

linked to Race to the Top and NCLB Waivers than the Obama administration would like. For

example, in 2014, six in ten Americans opposed states requiring that teacher evaluations include

how well a teacher’s students perform on standardized tests, according to a PDK/Gallup poll

(Bushaw & Calderon, 2014a). Furthermore, this represented a substantial increase in opposition

from just two years prior, when only 47 percent of people opposed teacher evaluations tied to

student standardized test performance (Bushaw & Calderon, 2014a). More broadly, 54 percent of

people thought student standardized tests were not helpful to teachers. With respect to Common

Core State Standards, 60 percent of Americans oppose having the teachers in their community

use the Common Core State Standards to guide what they teach (Bushaw & Calderon, 2014b).

One element of Obama’s agenda, boosting access to public charter schools, does show strong

support from the public. Seven in ten Americans support charters, though only half know that

they’re public schools (Bushaw & Calderon, 2014b). Broadly speaking, Obama receives

middling to poor marks from Americans in terms of his performance in support of public

schools, with 29 percent of Americans grading the President as a “C” and 27 percent giving him

an “F” (Bushaw & Calderon, 2014b).


Teachers are a politically influential subset of the broader population, who have a lot to do

with actually implementing education policy on the ground. In some cases, teachers and the

broader public are divided with respect to elements of RTT. For example, in PEPG/Education

Next’s 2010 poll, while most Americans with an opinion supported RTT, teachers with an

opinion opposed it by a 2:1 margin; 68 percent of teachers with an opinion opposed it, while 32

percent of teachers with an opinion favored it (Education Next, 2010). With respect to the

Common Core, EdNext’s 2013 and 2014 polls found that public teacher support for the Common

Core was higher than the general public in 2013 (76 percent versus 65 percent, respectively), but

less positive in 2014 (46 percent, compared with 53 percent, respectively) with greater

opposition (40 percent, compared with 26 percent) (Henderson, Peterson, & West, 2015).

However, as is always the case, how a survey asks a question has a strong impact on how the

respondent answers. One problem with surveys about the Common Core is that many ideas are

wrapped up in that terminology. A Gallup survey of teachers asked public school teachers what

the impact of “having one set of educational standards across the country for reading, writing,

and math” would be, and 76 percent said the impact would be positive (Lyons, 2014). Just a

quarter (27 percent) of teachers, however, said using standardized computer-based tests to

measure all students’ performance and progress would have a positive impact, and only 9 percent

of teachers said that linking teacher evaluations to their students’ Common Core test scores

would have a positive impact--89 percent said it would have a negative impact (Lyons, 2014).

RTT’s Impact on State Education Policy

The Department of Education established a number of criteria that states had to meet to

even be eligible to apply for RTT funds. States had to commit to educational reform at the

legislative level despite the possibility of rejection. These mandates – for example the criteria


that states not have caps on the number of charter schools permitted to operate or not have

obstacles in place preventing the linking of student-achievement data with individual teacher

information – appear to have had a significant impact on state school reform efforts (McGuinn,

2011; Meredith, 2013; National Center for Educational Evaluation, 2014). Meredith (2013)

examined policies states passed in three policy areas that RTT intended to influence through its

competitive grant program. These include teacher policy (recruiting, developing, rewarding, and

retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most), college and

career readiness policy (adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in

college and the workplace to compete in the global economy), and persistently lowest achieving

schools policy (turning around the lowest-achieving schools). While some of these policy

changes were already underway before RTT came along, many of the policy changes made can

be attributed to RTT. Meredith (2003) looked only at substantive policy changes and found that

from March 2009 to November 2009 states “passed 21 teacher policy bills or administrative

policies, 17 college and career readiness policies, and 14 persistently lowest achieving schools

policies” (Meredith, 2013, p. 118). After the Department of Education released federal guidance

and announced the first round winners, states “passed 30 teacher policies, 31 college and career

readiness policies, and 23 persistently lowest achieving school policies” (Meredith, 2003, p.

118).

NCEE’s second released report takes a closer look at the extent to which states required

teacher evaluation policies aligned with RTT as of spring 2012. Based on structured interviews

conducted with administrators in 49 states and the District of Columbia, the report examined

state policy alignment with the eight teacher evaluation RTT application criteria which include,

for example, that states require multiple measures of performance to evaluate teachers in tested


and non-tested grades and subjects (NCEE, 2014). The study generated several interesting

findings. Overall, it found that, on average, RTT and non-RTT states reported requiring less than

half of the eight teacher evaluation policies aligned with RTT priorities. However, RTT states

tended to require more of these policies than non-RTT states (NCEE, 2014).

A closer look at which of the eight policies were most aligned with states’ policies

suggests that states’ teacher evaluation policies were most aligned with RTT priorities focused

on using multiple measures to evaluate teacher performance using multiple ratings categories,

and conducting annual evaluations (NCEE, 2014). Approximately 75 percent of early RTT states

(these are defined as states that were awarded grants in Rounds 1 and 2) and 71 percent of later

RTT states (states that won grants in Round 3) reported requiring two or more measures to

evaluate teachers in both tested and non-tested grades and subjects. Approximately 5 non-RTT

states reported requiring two or more of these latter measures (NCEE, 2014). In terms of patterns

across states for combining multiple measures to evaluate teachers, the report found that

classroom observations were a key measure required by many states for teacher evaluations

(NCEE, 2014). States’ policies that were least aligned with RTT priorities focused on using

evaluation results to inform decisions about compensation and career advancement. Only 11

states reported requiring that teacher evaluations be tied to annual salary increases (6 states) or

performance-based compensation (5 states). Of the 11 states, half were RTT states. Only one

state (an RTT state) reported requiring that teacher evaluation results be used to guide decision

about career advancement. The study suggests that a potential explanation for why RTT states

have not required all eight policies aligned with RTT application criteria has to do with the

controversial nature of the proposed teacher evaluation policies. In fact, a 2013 U.S. Government

Accountability Office (GAO) report (GAO, 2013) suggests that “11 of the 12 RTT states


discussed difficulty of addressing teacher concerns about the scale of evaluation reform” (GOA,

2013, p. 18). The NCEE (2013) report found that those states that had collective bargaining

power reported, on average, having less teacher evaluation policies aligned with RTT. Some

states also did not mandate a statewide evaluation system but, rather, worked at the district level

to ensure that local education agencies put in place an evaluation system that complied with state

statute (NCEE, 2014).

RTT’s Impact on Winning States

What has been RTT’s impact on winning states? What has gone well and what has not

gone as well? Most of the research on RTT’s impact on winning states examines “impact” in

terms of how states have fared with implementation of RTT mandates rather than an analysis on

how different components of RTT have influenced key educational outcomes. For example, the

Department of Education’s RTT annual reports provide information about winning states’

implementation and do provide some information about student outcome variables (such as

states’ National Assessment of Educational Progress scores) but one cannot establish a causal

link between particular components of RTT and any increases or decreases in state assessment

and NAEP scores without more sophisticated analysis. The Center for American Progress

released a report in 2012 that looked at Round 1 and 2 winning states’ challenges and successes

in their implementation of RTT. Overall, the report found that, with the exception of Hawaii and

Florida, most Round 1 and 2 states, as of 2012, were on “track with their early RTT

commitments” (Boser, 2012, p. 10). However, the report also goes on to say that every grantee

has changed or delayed some part of their grant and that this has mostly been due to internal

capacity issues. States particularly struggled with implementation of data systems (Boser, 2012).

The DOE’s second annual progress report showed that, a year later, states were still struggling


with similar issues. In particular, states faced challenges in the areas of implementing teacher and

principal evaluation systems and building and upgrading data collection systems. While Hawaii

and Florida were initially on the DOE’s “at-risk” list in their first annual report, the second

annual report lists Georgia, the District of Columbia, and Maryland as “at-risk” (Boser, 2012).

Georgia and Maryland were assigned “high-risk” status because, among other things, they have

been sluggish in getting their teacher evaluation systems up and going (Boser, 2012). Overall,

the evidence so far suggests that RTT has impacted states’ in a variety of ways. States may have

designed their RTT proposals without consideration for internal capacity and implementation

context and are now struggling to articulate to the DOE how it is that they will follow through

with RTT requirements.

RTT’s Impact at the School System Level

Evidence on RTT’s impact at the school system level is limited at best. While there are

plenty of speculative and opinion-based reports on perceived impacts, to our knowledge, there

are few evidence-based reports on local level impacts. Searches using the search engine Proquest

that included a combination of the following key words and /or phrases “Race to the Top”,

“impact”, “school level”, “teachers” yielded a few relevant studies published in the last few

years. Most studies employed qualitative research methodologies, using structured or semi-

structured interviews as the primary mode of data collection. For example, in her dissertation

Gutmann (2014) examines how teacher evaluation policies implemented in North Carolina as a

direct result of winning an RTT competitive grant influenced teachers at the ground level. More

specifically, she examined how these new policies influenced teachers’ conceptions of good

practice and professional identity. Gutmann (2014) found that overall the new evaluations put in

place as a result of RTT “only somewhat mattered” to teachers as the evaluations “often failed to


live up to their full potential.” Teachers described flaws in implementation and no connection

between evaluation ratings and improvement strategies (Gutmann, 2014). A study by Porter,

Fusarelli, and Fusarelli (2014) focused on how teacher, principal, and RTT coordinators

experienced the Common Core Standards in North Carolina. The authors found several key

results. First, interpretation about how to think about Common Core Standards in relation to

instruction differed at each level – from districts, to principals, to teachers. Without a unifying

message about how to implement Common Core Standards, much tension existed between

teachers and administrators. The study also found that teachers felt they were given very little

guidance about how to implement the Common Core State Standards and thus spent a good deal

of time attempting to guess and interpret how the new standards should play out in instruction.

Teachers reported feeling stressed and frustrated. In general, the limited research base suggests

that successful implementation of RTT will largely depend on context surrounding teacher and

classroom use. We will have to wait for results from the IES evaluation of RTT to glean more

conclusive evidence of the impacts of the policy at the state and local level.

RTT’s Impact on NCLB

In 2011, the Obama administration announced that it would award waivers under the No

Child Left Behind Act to states that agreed to adopt policies similar to those promulgated by

RTT. More specifically, the Obama administration,

“would provide State Education Agencies (SEAs) with flexibility regarding specific requirements of NCLB in exchange for college- and career-ready expectations for all students; differentiated accountability, including targeting the lowest-performing schools, schools with the largest achievement gaps, and other schools with performance challenges for subgroups; and teacher and principal evaluation and support systems that take into account student growth and are used to help teachers and principals improve their practices” (DOE, 2013).


As of November 2014, 43 states and the District of Columbia have received NCLB waivers.

These states are eligible to apply to renew their waivers through the 2017-18 school year. States

that the department believes are fully meeting waiver requirements could see their waivers

extended to the 2018-19 school year (Bidwell, 2014). The DOE revoked Washington’s waiver

because it experienced extensive problems with instituting a teacher evaluation program. It also

revoked Oklahoma’s for pulling out of Common Core State Standards (Bidwell, 2014). As was

described earlier, California presents an interesting example of how the battle over NCLB

waivers has played out in some states. Eight unified districts in California applied for a waiver

through the umbrella organization of CORE. After intense negotiations, the districts were

granted a waiver, making it the first time that waivers were not issued specifically through a state

department of education (Fensterwald, 2013). States that opted out of the NCLB waivers include

California, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Vermont. Montana cited that costs for

implementing changes required by the Obama administration in exchange for a waiver would be

too costly. As the Montana’s education chief Denise Juneau states, "The priorities of the

administration often don't fit rural America, including both small states and frontier states like

Montana…they seem to be designing initiatives for urban areas" (Resmovits, 2011). North

Dakota revoked its application for an NCLB waiver because of disagreements with DOE around

the number of non-proficient students that would need to be reduced. DOE asked North Dakota

to reduce this number to 50 percent over a span of six years, while North Dakota felt that 25

percent was more appropriate (Johnson, 2013). Nebraska initially rejected the waiver because it

felt that under the waiver requirements the state would lose the ability to “follow its own vision

of education” (Reist, 2014). However, as of November 2014 it has been reported that Nebraska is

negotiating with DOE with the hope of applying for a waiver (Reist, 2014). Vermont on the other


hand has no plans on applying for NCLB waivers. Like North Dakota, Vermont worried that

NCLB waiver did not provide as much flexibility as was initially conceived. A primary concern

for the state proved to be the requirement that under the waivers states still had to give annual

standardized tests. As the Stephen More, the chairman of the Vermont Board of Education,

stated, “"Our main interest was in being able to assess students in a more complete way and not

have the arbitrary testing and all the repercussions from that, and that's not what they meant by

waiver” (Rathke, 2012). In essence states that opted out of NCLB generally felt either that

receiving the waiver would add additional burdens to the state or that adopting Obama’s

educational reform policies as an exchange for a waiver proved to be as rigid as NCLB

provisions.

Conclusion: Lessons Learned

The development and implementation of RTT and NCLB Waivers provides us with the

following lessons learned:

● Pivot away from the problems of your predecessor. Both RTT and NCLB Waivers

were positioned as antidotes to problems with No Child Left Behind, which had built up a

substantial array of detractors over time.

● Take advantage of windows of opportunity. Take Rahm Emanuel’s advice. Obama’s

former chief of staff once said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” The

economic crisis of 2008 enabled what enabled RTT, what Secretary of Education Arne

Duncan referred to as education reform’s “moonshot.” There will be opportunities to

advance our administration’s education agenda. We have to be prepared to take

advantage of them.


● Don’t let your rear guard down. While the Obama administration thought Common

Core standards and assessments were in the bag, they let other voices frame the standards

in a negative light. Never stop building and strengthening your policy coalitions and

getting your message out to key education stakeholders and the broader public.

● Use multiple approaches to advance your policy priorities. Because RTT was a

competitive program, many aspects of the Obama administration’s education policy

agenda weren’t able to be fully implemented in non-participating states. NCLB waivers

provided an avenue to extend reform to nearly the entire country.

● Take advantage of your executive authority. The Obama administration used

congressional gridlock as an excuse to pursue its agenda administratively (e.g., NCLB

Waivers), and at the same time, prodded the congress towards constructive action. Unless

the congress is under your party’s complete control, feel free to bash congress as do-

nothings—the public will agree with you.

● Provide incentives to states and they will adopt your reforms. Money talks. Dangling

money in front of states during a fiscal crisis led to substantial state-level policy reforms

among states attempting to pursue RTT. Competitive grant programs can give you great

bang for your buck by incentivizing policy change among a broader set of states than just

those who earn competitive funds. Enabling states to side-step NCLB requirements via

waivers led states to adopt politically touchy policies around teacher evaluation.

● Implementation is key. Under RTT, many states over-promised and under-produced. Be

sure to make use of frequent evaluation and provide ongoing support and technical

assistance to states to boost the odds of successful implementation.


By taking these lessons learned into account, the new administration will be well-positioned to

chart a new course for the nation’s education policy, navigate the tricky education policy arena,

and advance the administration’s education reform agenda.


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new.every1graduates.orgnew.every1graduates.org/.../2015/01/RTT_CaseStudy.docx · Web viewIt also revoked Oklahoma’s for pulling out of Common Core State Standards (Bidwell, 2014)