12 of the 16 (15 + DC) finalists to get Arne's money got Gates money to help them compete.

[madfloridian]

As this blog says, that is a very huge overlap which could mean a lot or mean nothing at all.

From the Fordham Flypaper:

The Gates Conspiracy

A perceptive reader pointed this out to me. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation originally provided 15 states with $250,000 planning grants to help them prepare their Race to the Top applications. After a firestorm of controversy, Gates made similar grants available to the other states. But note this:

Original Gates States:

Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.

Round I finalists:

Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee

Overlap:

Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee

(12 out of 16)

Here is more about the 16 finalists, 15 + DC.

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia survived the first cut Thursday in the Obama administration's unprecedented $4 billion school reform contest.

The announcement of finalists in the Race to the Top competition at 11:30 a.m. carried some political risk because few governors or state education leaders want to be told they are not in the vanguard of reform. It's also seen as a test of President Obama's resolve to push for major changes in public education as he seeks to rewrite the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.

The finalists are: Colorado, Delaware, the District, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.

..."These states are an example for the country of what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. "Everyone that applied for Race to the Top is charting a path for education reform in America."

Race to the top finalists

Last year the Associated Press pointed out that ethics rules had been bent to allow the Department of Education to work more easily with the Gates Foundation.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan welcomes the foundation's involvement.

"The more all of us are in the game of reform, the more all of us are pushing for dramatic improvement, the better," Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Duncan's inner circle includes two former Gates employees. His chief of staff is Margot Rogers, who was special assistant to Gates' education director. James Shelton, assistant deputy secretary, was a program director for Gates' education division. Rogers said she joined the administration because she was inspired by the its goals for helping kids graduate from high school and finish college.

The administration has waived ethics rules to allow Rogers and Shelton to deal more freely with the foundation, but Rogers said she talks infrequently with her former colleagues.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Curiouser and curiouser

[LWolf]

2. Ethics rules were bent to allow more corporate involvement.

Lovely.

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

[Doremus]

4. Oh great. Ohio schools aren't screwed up enough. Now they're on the menu.

I'm sure they're preparing to pick the carcass clean as we speak. :mad:

[ProSense]

5. "which could mean a lot or mean nothing at all. " Conspiracy theories? Here's Sen. Brown:

Sen. Brown Praises Ohio Schools’ Passage into Next Round of the “Race To The Top”

Recovery Act Program Rewards Schools that Succeed; Brown Urged Sec. of Education to Consider Ohio’s Qualifications

March 4, 2010

WASHINGTON D.C. - U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today applauded Ohio's inclusion in the next round of the "Race to the Top" program. The program uses Recovery Act funding to reward schools that measurably improve their quality of education. Ohio is competing to receive more than $400 million of the $4 billion available nationwide. Of the 40 states and the District of Columbia that applied to the program, just 16 were chosen to move on to the next round of competition.

"The Race to the Top program provides incentives for good schools to become great, and Ohio should have an important role to play in the program," said Sen. Brown. "This year Ohio earned its highest rating ever from Education Week, and we will not stop improving our public education system. Our future economic development will be built on the accomplishments of our students, and we owe them the education they need to succeed."

Nearly 480 Ohio school districts signed on to the state's application for funding. In January, Sen. Brown wrote to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan urging that Ohio's application be given strong consideration. "Ohio has commenced its new biennium with a comprehensive education reform plan," wrote Sen. Brown. "Funding provided through the Race to the Top program would accelerate the state's existing agenda to strategically address gaps in delivering a highly effective learning experience to all students." The same month, Ohio's education system was rated the fifth-best in the nation by Education Week, the state's highest rating yet from the publication.

Full text of Sen. Brown's letter can be found HERE.

[madfloridian]

6. "conspiracy theories"? Who the heck knows.

[saracat]

7. K+R

[Jakes Progress]

9. Yet another Washington Press Release

as "proof". Golly. A congressional letter for voters. Everyone knows that everything in those is golden.

Look, the OP said it might be a big old conicidence. But, as usual, you had to go to try to make a point with the flimsiest form of documentation. That stands right up there with "it's on the internets" as a form of argument.


And again, you dodge the issue of the OP. The OP suggests a connection between the corporate world and Arne's agenda. What does your puff piece have to do with that? It is your standard, very tired, and oh so smarmy method of side tracking a thread with pointless and copious press office documents. I guess you have ready access to those.

So the germane point would be if you would care to offer an opinion on whether you think that corporate interests are influencing the Race for the Top Dollar program. Got anything?

[Starry Messenger]

8. k & r

[Jakes Progress]

10. K&R It is getting clearer and clearer for those

without the rosy hued spectacles.

[Jefferson23]

11. From Democracy Now : Yesterday, March 4.

Thousands of Students Taking Part in National Day of Action to Defend Public Education

Thousands of students in at least thirty-two states are planning to walk out of classes today as part of the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education. The call for nationwide protests originated in California following last November’s student strikes and building takeovers in response to undergraduate fees rising 32 percent. Budget cuts in California have led to teachers furloughs, canceled classes, and entire academic departments being eliminated. We speak to University of California, Berkeley professor Ananya Roy and Ricardo Gomez, a third-year undergraduate student who started the group Berkeley Students Against the Cuts.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/4/students


This morning's show does not appear to be running yet on their website, but check it out later. Diane Ravitch who wrote, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

Interview with Amy, worth watching.

Here is one review of her book. Ravitch Is Right... and Wrong

I spent part of the last two weekends reading Diane Ravitch's new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. It's part polemic and part confessional.

Ravitch, once an ardent supporter of charter schools, accountability and other market-based reforms, has done a dramatic, highly public 180-degree turn. She now says these approaches will destroy public education if allowed to continue unfettered.

A former federal education official (under Bush I and Clinton) and an influential writer and thinker on education, Ravitch's change of heart is attracting national notice, and with good reason.

Her book, while exhibiting some of the new convert's zeal and bombast, contains thought-provoking stuff. While I don't agree with some of her conclusions, and though she paints some people as villains who don't deserve the abuse, she also makes some compelling arguments that those of us pushing some of the reforms she now abhors would be wise to ponder.

In a nutshell, Ravitch believes that U.S. education went seriously off the rails in the early 1990s and has been heading down an increasingly destructive path ever since.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-gottlieb/ravitch-is-right-and-wron_b_482763.html

On edit, I forgot to mention earlier that Ravitch speaks about the Gates Foundation and others in the Democracy Now interview.

[CBR]

12. It doesn't look like Delaware overlaps as the article indicates. nt

[Overseas]

13. K&R . //nt