Arizona had been awarded $25 million in round three of the US Department of Education’s Race to the Top grants. Only half of the grant funding will be devoted to use by local school districts and charter schools, at the same time that the state has established new education goals in areas like 3rd-grade literacy.
Instead, as outlined in the grant submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, Arizona will use the award money to build a data system with which parents, teachers and administrators can monitor student and school performance. In reality, the system will be used to track students, something educators rejected in the 1970’s.
If successful, there will be a two track system of education; children be identified early on in school as qualified for college or vocational track, much as they have been in Europe.
Many say the system is a rejection of American values, in that we believe that parents and children should be the sole decision makers and anything is possible if you work hard enough.
A portion of the Race to the Top dollars will go to teacher training and some will be devoted to the advancement of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.
“If the new system is designed to help a school staff know where they need to improve instruction for specific students and specific standards…that is good. The best would be if the data system could help with what is called formative assessment…that allows teachers to adjust their day to day lessons based on how well students are learning what is being taught. I am not aware of any systemic support for such assessment. A system that just let’s everyone…parents, teachers, administrators, legislators, etc…know that a school is meeting standards or not is basically a waste of money because that can already be easily done. In other words, if the new data system does not concretely assist schools to improve instruction, either on a year to year or day to day basis, it is a gigantic waste of federal dollars,” said long time educator and co-founder of Tucsonans United For Sound Districts, Rich Kronberg.