Breaking News: Florida loses in first round of RT3.

I’ve heard that Tennessee, a “winner” [sic] in the sweepstakes, had a similar proposal to that of Florida. The difference appears to be that Tennessee had the buy-in of 93% of its teachers’ associations, whereas in Florida only 5 of 67 teachers’ associations signed their districts’ Memos of Understanding.

Apparently, collaboration works better than bullying. I wish our legislators would heed that lesson.

Florida will most assuredly enter the sweepstakes in the second round, so teachers, and community members who believe in local control, had better not let down their guards.

Read the entire article and post a comment on palmbeachpost.com.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/schools/...SinglePage=true

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Good news or bad news? Florida loses out on $1 billion bid for federal Race to the Top education grant

By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
March 29, 2010

The race is over … for now.

In a somewhat surprising decision, Florida today lost out on the more than $1 billion it had sought from the federal Race to the Top education grant program, an Obama administration initiative to reward states for pursuing aggressive school reform.

The U.S. Department of Education announced this afternoon that Delaware and Tennessee were the two winners that beat out 14 other states and the District of Columbia to claim a chunk of the $4 billion in education money.

Delaware had asked for $107 million to help pay for a plan to turn around its worst schools while Tennessee sought $502 million, according to news reports. Both states had instituted new ways to evaluate teachers' job performance, Education Week reported — and, unlike Florida, had garnered widespread backing from their teachers' unions.

Florida, which had been viewed by many industry experts as a front-runner, asked for the most money. ...

Despite falling short in its bid, Gov. Charlie Crist said he was encouraged after a conversation today with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

"We're disappointed, but not deterred," Crist said. "It's on to Round 2."

States that didn't win in the first round can apply again in a second round. Those applications are due June 1, with the winners scheduled to be announced in September. More than $3 billion remains in the fund.

Florida ranked fourth in the competition behind the two winners and Georgia. Forty-one states applied for the first round of federal stimulus dollars.

Crist said he was encouraged by Florida's ranking.

"It bodes very well for the second round," he said. "We're pressing forward and we're not giving up."

Still, Florida Board of Education Chairman T. Willard Fair told the St. Petersburg Times that missing out on the cash was "the biggest shock of my professional career."

State lawmakers were also anticipating the money. The Senate approved a plan last week to base teacher raises on student performance. The $900 million proposal was supposed to be paid for with money from the Race to the Top fund.

State Sen. John Thrasher, the St. Augustine Republican pushing the merit pay plan, said the state can fund his proposal without the federal grant money.

"It would have been nice, but the bill is not predicated on whether we got Race to the Top," he said. "This policy is based on what we think is the right thing to do for the state of Florida."

Florida had planned to use the money to double the percentage of high school freshmen who eventually go on to earn college credit and to eliminate the achievement gap between white and minority students. It would have accomplished that by overhauling teacher evaluation and pay systems, using student achievement instead of years on the job to decide who gets raises and promotions.

So, what went wrong?

One big obstacle: The state was unable to garner widespread support of its teachers unions. Applicants earned more points if they had the backing of local school districts and teachers' unions.

Palm Beach County teachers' union President Robert Dow said he wasn't surprised Florida got shut out of the competition.

"The state was supposed to focus on the most needy students in the most difficult schools and it didn't," Dow said. "This was supposed to be a joint effort between the state, the school district and the teachers, but it wasn't."

The Florida Education Association objected to parts of the plan that would tie teacher pay to student performance on the FCAT.

Not everyone was disappointed Florida didn't win.

"I think it's good news that Florida didn't qualify," said Susan Petosa, a Boca Raton mother of two. "There were too many strings attached to the Race to the Top money."

Rita Solnet, a former PTA president at Eagles Landing Middle School in Boca Raton, said legislators are "selling their souls" for federal funds that will disappear in two years.

"It's all about chasing after this money so I suppose legislators can then tell their constituents what they won for Florida in their campaign literature," Solnet said. "The winning states are guinea pigs with all the rules and regulations they drafted for Race to the Top."

Ellen Blatt, an English teacher at William T. Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens, said the state losing out on the grant will probably be viewed unfairly as another failure by the teachers.

"The district seems to blame us for all the ills of the state," Blatt said. "But I'm sure the state will go after the money aggressively in Round 2, which means teachers are still in danger of suffering what the state has in store for us."

This isn't the first time Floridians have lost out on a major education grant. Palm Beach County was in competition last year for a $120 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But that fell apart when the district's application angered teachers by labeling 70 percent of the county's teachers "ineffective." The Gates Foundation had made it clear that it was looking for proposals submitted by school districts and teachers unions united in their reform plans.