Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Another Waste


So we got Race to The Top Money, big deal. Will the money be used to lower class size? Will the money be used to provide individual instruction? Will the money be used so children will not sit in substandard trailers, bathrooms, hallways, NO!!!!!!!

From Gotham Schools: New York City expects to see between $250 and $300 million of the total. City officials are just beginning to plan exactly how they will allocate those funds within the state’s overall plan, Chancellor Joel Klein said today. While some districts will have to spend heavily to catch up with New York City, city officials suggested that they would pour the new funds into new initiatives, especially developing the assessments that will soon count for 20 percent of teachers’ evaluations.

For example, the state has proposed using $60 million of the Race to the Top funds on building a new statewide database system modeled on the city’s ARIS system. But the city has already spent more than $80 million on ARIS.

It doesn't matter that the money came too late to save teaching positions, provide new programs or give summer instruction. Teacher evaluations and data analysis are all that matters. And Obama is saying teachers are important. He might also try to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge.

4 comments:

NYC Educator said...

It really doesn't matter that the money came too late for any of those things. Actually, they are not permitted to spend these funds on any of those things anyway.

Pissedoffteacher said...

Sure, why use the money to actually improve education when it can be used to bash teachers.

Anonymous said...

and ARIS cost MUCH MUCH more then 80 million. All this is just to single out and harass teachers.

reality-based educator said...

Even worse, an article at Huffingtonpost says the teacher jobs money - the dough that came from the $12 billion in food stamp cuts - won't be used for education.

Instead states will use loopholes to plug budget holes with the money instead.

So Obama has handed out $14.3 billion in education and all they did was create data systems, add standardized tests to every class at every grade level, fire teachers, close schools and pay off cronies like McGraw Hill and the New Teacher Project.