It seems everyone is quick to blame Pennsylvania’s loss in Race to the Top on the lack of union buy-in. For example, Rendell, who maintains that “in all fairness, we should have won,” despite Pennsylvania’s application falling over thirty points short, said that, “if all Pennsylvania State Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers locals in the state had "bought in" to the application, "it would have been very helpful." Senator Piccola also said, "Clearly, our application was not strong enough. It lacked an education empowerment piece, and it needed total buy-in from teachers unions and school districts. Only one-third of school districts and teachers unions signed on to the [Race to the Top] application at a time when we need all hands on deck for a major sea change in education." (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10237/1082446-454.stm) So that’s it, then: the unions caused Pennsylvania to lose the Race to the Top.
Actually, not quite. In a simple and quick analysis of the scores for the second phase, one finds that on section A (“State Success Factors”), which deals mostly with union buy-in, Pennsylvania scored 103.2 out of 125 points, which is an 82.5%, and actually places it higher than a winning state (Rhode Island). On the other hand, for section D (“Great Teachers and Leaders”), of which I wrote of the many perplexing flaws and weaknesses in the application, Pennsylvania scored 95.4 out of 138 points, which is an astonishingly low 69.1%. This percentage places Pennsylvania 15 percentage points lower than the lowest winning state, and it is the only state in the top twenty to score in the 60s. In fact, Pennsylvania lost more than half of its total points in this one section (42.6 out of 82.4 points lost). Politicians should drop the pointing of fingers at the Local Education Agencies (LEAs), and instead examine why they, and the students of Pennsylvania, actually lost.
But that would require them to point the finger directly at themselves: the stalled passage of State Bill 441 directly caused 10.6 of the 42.6 points to be lost in sub-criteria D1. Rendell minimized this loss when he “noted, however, that [the failed passage] cost the state 12 points, not enough to clear the 440-point hurdle,” (note: I am entirely unaware of where this “12 points” figure comes from as Pennsylvania scored 10.4 in a 21 point category concerning this sub-criteria). Yes, that is true—but if Pennsylvania scored 417.6 in the second round and 440 is Rendell’s mark, that means that, if we use Rendell’s “12 points” quote, the stalled passage accounted for over half of the 22.4 points we could have used to hit that 440 mark. And that is quite a different way to look at this stalled passage.
And this gets even more frustrating when one examines why this bill stalled. In an article from June 4, Eric Boehm of The Bulletin neatly writes how (http://thebulletin.us/articles/2010/06/04/news/local_state/doc4c098ad446bd4050600565.txt) political squabbling led by Senator Piccola caused SB 441 to be sent back to the House. Senator Piccola, in a misguided attempt to “strengthen” an already strong bill, inserted language entirely detached from the intention of the legislation (related to the state takeover of the Harrisburg School District). Rightly so, it was rejected, for it had little, if anything, to do with the intent of the original bill. If Senator Piccola had not inserted his amendment and the bill were passed, Pennsylvania would have been about halfway there to the 440-point mark. And this is not conjecture: the application comments state, “yet despite votes in the house and senate that were overwhelmingly supportive of technical aspects of the bill subsequent senate/house reconciliation held up its passage. Because the law has yet to be passed and could still be a victim of politics medium points are awarded.” And the reviewers then withheld further points, and rightly so: the bill already was a victim of politics—why should they believe it wouldn’t later on?
But that still leaves around another 10-12 points to go. If Pennsylvania had simply paid attention to the first phase’s application comments, they could have knocked out half of those: in sub-criteria D4 (iii), which concerns the expansion of successful educator preparation programs, I pointed out that the second application essentially restates the first application even after the first application reviewers noted weaknesses. And there are no surprises here: Pennsylvania lost 5points, and the second application reviewers tersely noted, “there was some discussion but little explanation of how the state plans to expand effective programs. Lowpoints were awarded expanding effective programs.”
To knock out the remaining 5-7 points to get to the 440 points, Pennsylvania could have improved on any of the remaining criteria in section D: in D2, we lost 12.8 points; D3, 8.2 points; and D5, 6 points. That totals 27 total points lost in these three other sub-criteria in D-- which is 5.2 more points lost than in all of Section A--, and a small improvement in any would have put Pennsylvania into the winner’s circle.
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