What Did They Do With That Race To The Top Money?

Remember all the breathless, relentless jive last year from the op-ed writers at the Post, the News, the Times, and the Journal about how New York HAD to raise the charter school cap and tie teacher evaluations to test scores or risk losing $700 million for schools around the state?

Well, New York DID raise the charter school cap and New York DID tie teacher evaluations to test scores despite pretty extensive evidence that suggests charter schools are NO better than traditional public schools and teacher evals tied to test scores are as disastrous as teacher pay tied to test scores and New York DID win the $700 million.

So what DID the state do with the money?

Layoffs in every district, class sizes shooting through the roof, school budgets slashed to the bone, and yet New York WON the RttT money.

The dishonesty of the RttT competition, rarely directly acknowledged by the politicians pushing the contest and never by the newspapers and media outlets promoting it, was that the money COULDN'T be used to save teacher jobs or lower class size or buy books or rid schools of bed bugs and make them safe for students and staff.

So here we are, less than a year later, and the schools in NYC are loaded with PCB's and bed bugs, class sizes are maxing out, thousands of teachers are going to lose their jobs and even more will next year when the Obama administration's RttT guidelines allow districts to fire teacher based upon test scores.

Gee, I'm so glad the state won that RttT money.

Just as the politicians and editorial writers predicted, the RttT money has SO made public education better.