Lesson needs to be learned from consensus Race to the Top bill

A wise man who bore many scars from his battles over school reform gently disagreed.

I had suggested to him in March that the state was better off with no Race to the Top bill than with the tepid version presented to the state House and Senate.

The bill, the result of a deal between Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington Education Association, was likely not enough to serve its stated purpose: to show the federal government that the state was serious about changing its public schools.

He agreed it was too weak to win a chunk of the competitive Race to the Top sweepstakes created by the Obama Administration.

But it had to pass, he said. If it failed, leaders like Gregoire, WEA President Mary Lindquist and legislative Democrats could assert that the bill would have been enough.

Therefore, only by passing the bill and being slapped down by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan would the state’s education establishment be forced to open itself to more-sweeping reform.

Wouldn’t it be better to pass a great bill than a good bill? Probably. But Gregoire had developed a strategy that was more politics than substance. Even though she admitted she would have preferred to get more, she decided that having “buy-in” from the teachers union was more important.

Beginning last summer she began meetings with union officials, state schools chief Randy Dorn, state education board chairwoman Mary Jean Ryan and representatives from the principals’ association.

When unveiled in January, it was termed by Gregoire a delicate balance that would unravel if amended. Rather than assert their constitutional role, legislative leaders went along.

But those who hadn’t been included in the deal tried to toughen the bill and take advantage of the momentum spurred by Race to the Top. School superintendents and education advocacy groups including the League of Education Voters, Stand For Children, the PTA and the Washington Business Roundtable thought it was fine to put more rigor in teacher and principal evaluations as the bill proposed, but there also needed to be a loss of tenure for veteran teachers who are failing.

They also thought student performance as measured by assessments needed to be a mandatory part of those evaluations. And they thought evaluations should be created by the state, not by 295 districts after 295 union bargaining sessions.

Dorn, despite standing with Gregoire at that January unveiling, said those flaws and the lack of charter school legislation would make it tough to win the federal competition.

All those are interesting ideas, Gregoire said. But none would have been accepted by the union, so they could not be included in the bill.

It passed on the last day of the session. Most school districts signed on to the plan. But shortly thereafter, Duncan said this: “Watered down proposals with lots of consensus won’t win.”

Washington didn’t win. It didn’t even make the playoffs and will have to wait until September to see where it fell short.

It is worth noting, however, that states that pushed through aggressive reform laws over the objections of their teachers unions – Colorado and Florida, most notably – made the list.

How will the state react? Will the setback spur further reform as that wise man hoped? Reform advocates hope so.

“We passed important education reforms this year, but that’s just the first step,” said Lisa Macfarlane, co-founder of the League of Education Voters.

But those who matter disagree. What we have in the way of reform legislation, they say, is all we’re likely to get.

“It is a plan that reflects our views and values, is unique to our state and one that we know will work,” Gregoire said Tuesday in a joint statement with Dorn and current state education board chairman Jeff Vincent.

So the wise man was wrong. It seems he overestimated the ability of the bill’s backers to be chastened. And he underestimated their willingness to see defeat as a form of victory.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657 peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/politics