Arne Duncan got an earful from reporters today. They asked about scoring and why some states emerged as finalists when they did little to improve various parts of their reform portfolio. Take New York for example, which failed to lift the cap that stands in the way of its considerably successful charter environment from growing.

“We said from day one,” said Duncan, “that there were many, many factors” that would go into the scoring. Many different things would be considered, he said.  “Charters were never going to be the determining factor from the very beginning.”

And there you go. Despite early and strong support for the idea that charter schools could turn around failing schools and promises that R2TT would help incentivize more states to lift caps and grow, charter laws were relatively inconsequential to the decisions of reviewers to pre-qualify 15 states plus the District of Columbia for new federal funds.

Why else would only three of the sixteen have charter laws among the top ten in the country? Indeed, Kentucky has none and seven others have laws that are barely passing.

So maybe the applicants were scored based on how rigorous their evaluations of teachers will be. Right? Wrong. Rhode Island’s application starts factoring in the impact a teacher has on student growth three years from now, and whose to say how they are going to measure that impact? Tennessee starts in 2011, but its law only requires 35% of a teacher’s evaluation to factor in student growth.

What’s going on here? California lifted its ban on the use of test data to evaluate teachers but the Golden State didn’t make it. DC and Florida, along with Colorado and Louisiana, might just be the only reformist states that made the final list. And now that it’s clear that a strong charter law or performance pay system doesn’t seem to matter for the competition, state policymakers can breath a sigh of relief that they don’t have to do any heavy lifting to get or stay in the game, just hire a smart team of consultants to create convincing charts and use flowery language. Read a little of Illinois’ application. It seems to be written entirely in the future tense.

So, do you fans of increased federal involvement in education still think it can make a difference to improving education for our children?

“Buried within a 263-page application for $409 million in federal grant money, Ohio education officials detail how they want to spend $600,000 for two cultural anthropologists, $400,000 for a video, $320,000 for a communications plan and another $160,000 for ‘creative messaging,’ according to this morning’s Dayton, Ohio news.  This set State Senator Jon Husted, a former education chair and current candidate for Secretary of State off the deep end. He called it an example of why people lose faith in government, and was “embarrassed” by some of the things the state is seeking to fund.

That’s not the worst of it. These abuses of money are obvious, but what about the policies that sound like they are addressing the Administration’s mandate to reform education but are actually carefully crafted to dodge the issue?

Take Tennessee, a state rumored to be a finalist today, whose Governor was lauded for signing into law a bill that requires at least 35% of teacher evaluations be pegged to student growth.  Their ‘Race to the Top’ application appears to imply that a greater amount of student growth counts towards teacher evaluation than is actually the case. The application says, “objective student achievement data will comprise 50% of the evaluation”, but does not make clear that student growth is still only 35% of that process, not 50%. The rest of how they will determine teacher performance is left up to multiple measures, classroom observation and other assessment tools to be decided. Cagey, no?

How about the competition’s push for charter schools? Delaware’s movement toward charter schools was halted by a series of self-imposed moratoriums (not mentioned in their application), they approved zero charters for this current school year and their approval of three new charter schools to open in 2010-2011 is hardly bold. And yet their application states “Delaware is among the most welcoming states for charter schools.”

Reviewers, however, are not permitted to use their knowledge of a state’s policies and environment to judge the applications.  It’s what’s on paper that requires their focus, not what they know (or can easily find out).

These are just a few of the examples that have many wondering how we can give credit to an otherwise well -intentioned program, one that may actually end up rewarding states for creative writing over good policy. Today we will know more when EdSec Duncan announces the finalists. Whether it will mean the race is won, or just starting again, remains to be seen.

Four things you are guaranteed not to hear in Wednesday night’s SOTU:

• “While a little nerve-wracking for us around the White House, November elections by the people of New Jersey and Virginia solidified what will be an exciting opportunity for those states to break from the status quo and embrace the education reforms of their new governors and the incredibly bold leaders they have chosen to steer schools in their states. At the very least, McDonnell has kept Gerard so busy he hasn’t been able to bother me about DC scholarships.”

• “Frankly, my Education Secretary and I were disappointed with the results of special legislative sessions and bill proposals regarding charter schools. Our crack public affairs team spun things so R2TT would come out smelling like a rose, but, come on. Caps lifted when states weren’t even near them, Louisiana? Strengthening collective bargaining, Illinois? And two little guys out of New England - I’m talking to you Rhode Island and Connecticut - giving charter schools money you had already promised then taken away? Really? I hope that wasn’t used to support your applications. We went to Harvard, you know.”

• “The one real win in R2TT goes on the scoreboard for teachers. Check this out. In addition to $100 billion dollars to keep them employed through the stimulus, we figured out a way to take it a step further with R2TT and teacher evaluation methodology. You could drive a truck through the holes in state proposals regarding teachers. You should see some of the emails Arne sends me late at night with examples cut straight from the applications. It’s all I can do to keep from falling out of bed. I can’t wait for round two.”

• “I won’t be using a teleprompter this evening.”

Q: And how many charter schools are there in the country about?

SECRETARY DUNCAN: I don’t have a hard number for you. We can get you that number.

Q: Thousands?

SECRETARY DUNCAN: Yes, thousands, thousands. Yes.

(Press gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Madison, WI - 11/4)

4,578.

That’s the answer you were looking for aboard Air Force One yesterday, Mr. Secretary. We’ve counted it, reported it, documented it. Sorry it wasn’t at your fingertips.

4,578 charter schools.

Thanks for supporting good charters. We actually support great charter schools, and we know that most are great, through scores of studies and reports over recent years. We also know by seeing who attends them, who waits to attend them, who escapes bad alternatives when they are available.

But we also support great charter laws, because without great laws, you can’t have great schools.

The small percentage of schools that some data suggest aren’t working are compromised by two things - first, bad charter laws that leave the same bureaucracies in control of the schools that are in control of the other bad public schools, and second, political opposition that sucks the energy and resources of the average charter school leader working on a shoestring budget with no PR department to fight the lies that are often spread about them.

Yes, good charter schools are right. There are boatloads of them.

And bad charter schools get closed.

657 of them have been closed over the course of the movement’s history.

How many bad public schools have closed? Not many.

Help us make all charter schools great, Mr. Secretary. Push for more than lifting caps and start talking about how most of them are really good. We can give you that data, too…

Tomorrow, on his continuing education tour, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be joined in Philadelphia by two gentlemen who because of their obvious differences on many levels are called the Odd Couple of education.  I applaud strange bedfellows - when they make things happen for kids. With this one, I’m not so sure.

The first real Odd Couples of education led some of the nation’s most fundamental shifts in education, shifts that had once been considered radical.  Looking back through the past sixteen years, it’s clear that while education reform has changed dramatically, broad, mainstream support for bold changes in education existed then, just as they do now.  It was just much less hip to say so.

Then, policymakers who led the fight for charter schools, merit pay (as it was called in those days), vouchers and the like were accused of being part of the vast right wing conspiracy and generally anti-public education, despite the fact that such nomenclature didn’t fit then, just as it does not now. CER’s first work celebrated legislators like Pennsylvania Democrat Dwight Evans, who joined hands with Republican Tom Ridge to pass that state’s charter bill.  Miami Urban League head T. Willard Fair teamed up with Governor Jeb Bush to bring vouchers to Florida, following in the steps of Representative Polly Williams, a former Black Panther, in league with conservative Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson.

These were the first, real Odd Couples of the modern education reform movement.  They were bold, tenacious, and courageous to cross party lines, incur the wrath of unions together and suffer all sorts of education establishment slurs.

More “Gingrich and Sharpton – An Odd Couple for Education, But Not the First”