By P.J. Dickerscheid
Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON — West Virginia education officials invested more than 4,500 hours trying to land $80 million for educational reforms only to be shot down Thursday as a finalist for the first phase of the $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” program.
But that isn’t deterring state schools Superintendent Steve Paine, administrators, teachers unions, educators and others who plan to tweak their application and resubmit it by June 1, the deadline for the second round.
Even if that effort doesn’t produce any federal money, state educators say the reforms will happen, just at a slower pace.
“Positive change for our students is much more important than being awarded a grant,” said Dale Lee, president of West Virginia Education Association, which represents more than 15,000 teachers and administrators. “We’re obviously disappointed, but education in West Virginia will continue to move forward.”
Besides, he said, $80 million over four years is a drop in the bucket, considering the state spends $1.6 billion a year on public education.
West Virginia was one of 40 states and the District of Columbia competing for the federal grants designed to spur states to lift student achievement. The competitive grant program aims to reward and encourage states to develop strong standards, get high-quality teachers in the classroom and turn around low-performing schools.
The selected 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 — will visit Washington later this month to present their proposals. The Education Department said it expects no more than half of the money to be awarded during the first phase of the competition.
To bolster West Virginia’s chances of securing funding in the second round, Gov. Joe Manchin has promised to call a special session to address weaknesses in the state’s application.
“We need to look at what the winning states are doing and what successes we can adopt here,” the governor said in a statement. “We are committed to making the changes that allow West Virginia’s students to build the skills they need to compete for jobs in the 21st century. If that means legislative action in a special session, we will do that.”
Though officials will not likely know why the panel of judges did not select its application until April, the state may have lost points for not having a charter-school law, having a limited track record for implementing education reforms and for not doing enough to raise the quality of teachers and administrators.
Those were among the criticisms the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute included in its “Leaders and Laggards” report released in November. They said West Virginia does a mediocre job of encouraging innovation and lacks an overall commitment to reform while not doing enough to reward good teachers and remove ineffective ones.
Areas where it praised the state was for its interactive data system and computer-based assessment capabilities.
Paine said the strengths of the state’s reform plan include professional development opportunities for all math teachers, the lauded data system that helps teachers and principals target curriculum toward students’ weaknesses, and decisive actions for turning around low-performing schools.
He and others also point to newly authorized innovation zones as having the benefits of charter schools without jeopardizing employment protections for teachers.
The $500,000 the state awarded to 19 innovation zone proposals in January will help develop programs that expose children to more cultural events, build character and leadership skills, develop math and science curriculum geared toward students interested in technical trades and create learning cafes that offer students more comfortable learning environments.
Educators also tout the state’s efforts toward developing a results-based pay program using multiple criteria to assess teacher performance. The system likely would reward teachers who take on leadership roles in their schools and advance through a series of jobs as part of a career ladder.
While student achievement also would be taken into account, it would be measured using multiple ratings that focus on student progress, not just test scores.
Both of the state’s teachers’ unions support the concept because it would not penalize teachers with poorer or less prepared students, but “the devil’s in the details,” said Judy Hale, president of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia.
Paine said many of the proposals will be tried and tested as voluntary pilot programs and only those that produce results adopted.
“My feeling is, let’s see if it works,” he said. “What we don’t want to do is throw out all practices at the expense of new practices that may or may not work.”
By involving all stakeholders in working together to build a system of reforms, Paine, Hale and Lee all said the state is working diligently toward improving education.
“This points us in the right direction,” Hale said.
