Race to the Bottom in MA

Massachusetts, where education reformers spent years creating strong academic-content-based standards and high-stakes testing for students and teachers, got zilch in the first round of the Obama administration's Race to the Top competition. The reasons? The state was deemed not to garner sufficient union buy-in for education reforms -- apparently the administration's biggest priority -- and refused to commit in advance to adopt what the Pioneer Institute calls "inferior" national educational standards that are still in draft form. Obama's grant competition, in other words, is undermining leaders in education reform such as those in the Bay State and encouraging antireformers to discard hard-won gains. Clearly the administration's ultimate aim is to nationalize education and to maximize union influence over this process.