Remember Marshmallow Man's county-wide exclusive that the HCPSS actually did submit that Race to the Top grant application that HCEA didn't sign off on? Well, the list of finalists were announced, and, not to my surprise, Howard didn't make the cut. Sara Toth brings you all the high quality educational goodness here.
So, when you read the article, you fully appreciate how competitive these processes are. Anywhere from 4 to 6 percent of the applicants will actually be funded. Even for Federal grants, this is a very highly competitive process. More competitive a process than for most scientific research grants.
I am therefore going to take a wild-eyed guess that the lack of the HCEA signature rendered the HCPSS application dead on arrival. Which, to reiterate a comment I have made many times, is a crying shame.
Even more of a shame is that Baltimore City's and Baltimore County's public school systems were named as finalists for these grants. Somehow, those neighboring jurisdictions' teachers unions were able to overcome the grave concerns that HCEA raised. Wonder how they did it? Or, well, just maybe... those concerns just aren't such grave concerns after all.
There was money here for our taking and it was unconscionable on the part of HCEA to not work with the HCPSS on this grant. Unfortunately a precedent within this county has now been set which I wager HCEA will use in the future. So we can expect future stalemates, and more opportunities for Howard's students not to benefit from innovative programs that these funds would support. Lucky us.
Actually, HCPSS has been saved from an autocratic, top down federal initiative (RttT) which has never been tested anywhere. HCPSS is very well funded without it.
Posted by: ReadingExchange | December 06, 2012 at 06:26 PM