Superintendent of Public Instructions Jack O’Connell can legitimately claim some accomplishments during his seven years in office: enacting  and successfully defending the high school exit exam; broadly expanding career academies in high school with  courses approved for UC admission; drawing attention to disparities of achievement among ethnic and racial groups and creating strategies, through his P-16 Council, for narrowing them; and cheerleading a modest growth in test scores.

But even with debilitating  cuts in school funding beyond O’Connell’s control, his last year could be his best –  if the state  wins hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Race to The Top money.

Listening to his final State of Education address, you’d think that it already has. He’s clearly jazzed at the possibility, devoting  the bulk of his speech to Race to the Top – even though there’s no saying California will get a penny. It’s one of 40 states that applied to the competition this week.

O’Connell would spend some of the money on issues he’s talked about for years, like creating a data and accountability system that measures students’ academic growth over the course of a year. The failure to have that model has led to disputes with the federal government over sanctions against schools under the No Child Left Behind law.

He’d use other dollars to create web sites and regional centers to share best practices among educators – projects that have moved slowly due to budget constraints.  These would help redefine the state’s relationship with school districts, away from nitpicking over program “inputs” to instead fostering  “continuous improvement at all levels.” As an example of one teacher’s impact, O’Connell cited MAP 2-D, a math curriculum and method of student instruction that Si Swun, a fifth grade teacher in Long Beach Unified, developed. When data proved that it worked, his school piloted it, then the district expanded it to grades K-8, and now other districts – Fresno, Compton, Oakland – have adopted it.

Race to the Top would allow also O’Connell to address issues that he and reformers have shied away from, because risks were high, and the political obstacles were daunting.  Amending the state’s curriculum standards and creating new  assessments with multiple measurements – replacing the state’s STAR tests – are two such areas. The state will have to do this because it has agreed to adopt national “common-core” standards.

Frank talk has begun. O’Connell acknowledged that teachers are often confused distinguishing between major and minor standards, and so they rush through pacing guides without time to make sure that students have mastered what’s important. “This problem is a real contributor to our achievement gap,” he said.

And he said that the state would work with teachers and districts “to design model teacher and principal evaluations” that could then be adopted locally. Not only would they be used for tenure, promotion and compensation decisions, but they would help to ensure that experienced and effective teachers are placed in hard-to-staff schools.

This, too, would create a big shift in how districts staff schools.

Race to the Top has encouraged  bold talk by cautious leaders.  Now all California has to do is win the money.

By John Fensterwald on January 22nd, 2010