President Obama’s allegedly reform- minded Department of Education of fered New York as much as $700 million in bonus school aid — provided Albany adopted some key public-education reforms.
New York blew off the reforms. But yesterday the feds said Albany is in line for a big chunk of cash anyway.
We smell a rat.
At issue is the $4.2 billion “Race to the Top” program — meant basically to bribe state school systems into placing the interests of public-school students above those of public-school teachers and administrators.
Albany basically nixed the reforms — notwithstanding Education Commissioner David Steiner’s assertion yesterday that his department “developed [a proposal] that will advance the bold reforms needed to turn around failing schools, close the achievement gap and enable all of our children to succeed.”
Blah, blah, blah.
The fact is, the teachers unions and school-boards associations got Albany to scuttle two key measures that the feds said were bottom-line critical if New York were to get any money:
* Raising the number of charter schools in the state.
* Linking teacher assessment to student achievement.
Neither was acceptable to the unions, especially — because both are bad news for teachers. Thus, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate leader John Sampson dutifully sank the proposal.
Yet Education Secretary Arne Duncan has given New York another chance. Which suggests that the unions got to him, too.
We hope not, because Duncan says — correctly — that competition (charter schools) and accountability (teacher standards) are critical elements of reform.
Then again, words are cheap. Albany thumbed its nose at Duncan and so far got away with it. Alas, that says it all.