The battle over Race to the Top federal education grants is a perfect example of what’s wrong with California lawmaking and lawmakers. To satisfy federal guidelines and capture up to $700 million in federal Race to the Top school reform funds, separate factions in the legislature have engaged in a tug of war instead of pulling on the same end of the rope to secure the funds.
As usual, there is one faction of lawmakers doing union bidding. The unions object to the stronger charter school language in the bill passed by the Senate that also gives more power to those pesky parents who demand excellence from their children’s schools.
Under the Senate bill, authored by Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), if a petition is signed by more than fifty percent of the parents, the school may be taken over by new leadership, including charter school operators. The union backed Assembly bill put forward by Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica) offers a watered down version of the parent trigger, which would just set off a bureaucratic paradise of hearings and little action to improve education for students.
The Parent Revolution, which pushed through a parent trigger with teeth in L.A., labeled the parent trigger in the Brownley bill “an insult to the parents of California.”
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supports the Senate version, said, “Parents should have the right to make a decision,” and promised to veto the Assembly bill if it reached his desk in its current form.
The Obama Administration is demanding states offer major changes to improve education in exchange for the federal grants. That is why it required a system that encourages charter schools and empowers parents. Instead the Assembly offered mild, bureaucratic changes with an eye to protect unions.
At risk is more than the millions in federal grant money. More importantly, at risk is an opportunity to embrace reform and promote competition into an education system that desperately needs both.
However, the Assembly’s stubborn embrace of the teachers’ union position in crafting a bill to meet the requirements of the federal government’s Race to the Top funds will probably mean California will miss out on a great deal of federal money and lose out on important reforms. California’s education system will be a winner in one way … it will win the race to the bottom.