California dreaming about race to the top?

California dreaming about race to the top? WITH AN EDUCATION BUDGET slashed to help close an enormous statedeficit, one would expect California to be first in line when Race tothe Top applications are available later this year. At $4.35 million,the fund represents the largest pool of discretionary money everdistributed by the Department of Education. But when the DOE unveiled its notice of proposed priorities,requirements, definitions, and selection criteria in July, Californiaofficials were dismayed to read that in order to be eligible, a state"must not have any legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers tolinking student achievement or student growth data to teachers for thepurpose of teacher and principal evaluation." California passed alaw in 2006 that does just that. Arne Duncan has called such laws"mind-boggling" and "ridiculous." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Fearing that the state could be ineligible for Race to the Topfunds, Ramon Cortines, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified SchoolDistrict, is attempting to bypass the state altogether and apply forfunds directly. He made his appeal in a July letter to Duncan, in whichhe points out that with 688,000 students, LAUSD educates more studentsin grades K-12 than 26 states. He outlines LAUSD's achievements inseveral areas, including the use of data to guide and evaluateinstruction, although he says the district has found that"year-to-year variability in teacher performance rankings givescause for concern if used as a high-stakes accountability tool." In July, Jack O'Connell, California's superintendent ofpublic instruction, defended the state's Race to the Topeligibility in both a letter to Duncan and a public appearance at theLong Beach Unified School District. O'Connell's primary pointwas that the 2006 law only prevents the state from using data toevaluate teachers, not individual districts. LBUSD, a winner (in 2003)and finalist (in 2007) for the Broad Prize for Urban Education, isfarther ahead than most districts in the state in using data. Despite these attempts by Cortines and O'Connell to convinceDuncan to take a second look at LAUSD and the state in general, stateSen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), chairwoman of the EducationCommittee, doesn't want to take any chances. She plans to holdhearings on whether the state law should be changed, a move thatO'Connell and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would support but thatwould surely encounter opposition from teacher unions.