The recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Education that California is not one of the 16 finalists for Phase 1 of Race to the Top funds leaves state educators in a bit of a quandary, in more ways than one.

One of the biggest complications is that the Legislature passed laws to enable the state to qualify for the funds, and those new state laws are now binding, regardless of losing out on RTT.

At the end of 2009, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called a special legislative session to address RTT. He was touting legislation to try to make California competitive for approximately $700 million in federal grant money, and he advanced a set of reform proposals, packaged in Senate Bill X5 1, Romero, D-Los Angeles, which the state Senate passed prior to the release of final RTT guidelines.

ACSA and others in the education community voiced concerns with SB X5 1, suggesting amendments and in some cases deletion of sections that imposed new state mandates – mandates that are now unfunded.

ACSA’s suggestions centered on the four primary areas in the legislation: effective teachers and leaders, data, struggling schools, and standards and assessments. Ultimately, most of the suggestions were ignored.

In the end, the USDOE’s peer review panel decided that 16 other states had stronger RTT applications. It will not be known until April, when peer reviewer comments will be released, why California was not included in the first round.

For LEAs that signed an RTT Memorandum of Understanding, those commitments are put on hold since the MOU is not binding without the RTT award. However, the rules required for the lowest 5 percent of schools, including four prescriptive interventions, the Open Enrollment Act and the "parent trigger" are still in effect and binding on all LEAs.

An independent standards commission will still review Common Core Standards, but at this point adopting them is not required unless California becomes eligible for Phase 2 RTT funding. Provisions of two pieces of ACSA-sponsored legislation are still required: the development of an individual student growth methodology and a delay in the sunset of STAR and the Public School Accountability Act from 2011 to 2013.

"ACSA believes the Phase 2 RTT application should focus on stronger support systems for teachers and principals working in struggling schools, and not just punitive models," said ACSA Legislative Advocate Sherry Skelly Griffith. "We stand ready to assist."

Click here for more information on ACSA Advocacy, or contact ACSA Governmental Relations at (800) 608-ACSA.