Race to the Top Article

Ok, I have just read the Race to the Top article in today's Tennessean. It amazes me that 40% of the total $430 million is going to two districts-Metro Nashville and Memphis. What about the other school systems in our state? These counties have enormous income coming in every year through various taxes and industry. Yet in the county I live and work in, the newest building is thirty years old. Our students cannot compete with the larger districts. The larger districts have more access to technology and newer teaching strategies because the money is there.

Even more disturbing, one of the spokespeople for Metro Nashville schools believe that money needs to be spent on how to make schools and districts work better by better understanding test data. Are you kidding me?! Our students are tested to death. Gone are the days where learning is fun and meaningful. Now it's teach the test, pray they pass, or lose your job. Our schools are turning out more and more kids with no critical thinking skills or quantitative reasoning skills. If they can't memorize it, it is not meaningful. If they do not receive a grade or reward, it is not worth learning.

In my humble opinion, all this Race to the Top stuff is about more money to develop more tests and drive good teachers into different professions. Teachers are pressured to have excellent test scores instead of being pressured to engage their students in life long learning. More and more students are dropping out of college because post secondary educators are expecting students to have critical thinking and quantitative reasoning skills. They cannot compete and they are not even functioning at grade level. My fellow teachers can affirm this. It gets worse every year, but the answer to the higher ups is to develop harder tests. What happened to getting to know the student as a person, not a number?

I would love to get feedback from anyone on this topic.