The Great Races !

Which schools won the recent big education races? Yes, there were two races: the Obama Race To The Top and California's Race To The Bottom. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia are semi finalists in the Obama race and one hundred eighty-one schools in California earned the distinction of being the state's worst performing schools. And much like existing education practices both extremes of the performance spectrum will be rewarded.

The semi finalists in the Obama race apparently jumped through the hoops and drank the Federal Department of Education's Kool Aide by revising their curricula, staff evaluations and testing to appease the Feds. Looking at the list of 16 semi finalists it is apparent that this lemming like rush for Federal bucks was most successful east of the Mississippi. Only the western state of Colorado is in the winner's circle. How the District of Columbia got included with the final fifteen states is remarkable. Obama's daughters do not attend DC's public schools as well as many of the school age children of members of congress who reside in DC. The public schools of Prince George's and Montgomery counties are the schools of refuge for these politicians.

In California the 181 worst performing schools will be required to make some staff and/or administrative changes or face closure; but these schools are also eligible for between $50K and $2 million dollars for the next three years to foster improvement. Kind of like the NFL draft in that the team with the worst record gets the first draft choice; but in this case the big bucks. Of course forgotten in all this racing about are the vast majority of schools in the country where students, teachers and parents work hard to see that kids learn and succeed; but rarely win any races or get additional funding.

Equally never mentioned and probably ignored is that fact that California's classrooms have far too many feral children in all grades who would be served better through additional remedial and compensatory parental attention or through the courts and the California Youth Authority. California's classrooms are not only the day care option for too many parents; but have become a placement option for delinquents and a vast array of children with serious social, behavioral, educational and psychological disorders.

The business of education is supposed to be education. Too much time and financial resources are now spent on non educational services like transportation, food services, health , and a vast array of social programs that the schools are ill equipped to provide. Having spent considerable time discussing what is wrong with our schools I will soon offer some concrete, posssibly socially acceptable and even practical solutions and suggestions to the mess in which we now find ourselves. Are we there yet?