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Obama announces $900 million for failing school turnaround
President Barack Obama on Monday promised a share of $900 million in new federal aid to schools that improve their graduation rates and post major gains in academic achievement.
However, that money is conditional on low-performing schools adopting drastic reforms in the coming year — measures that include firing staffs, establishing charter systems or shuttering their facilities indefinitely.
The president announced the request Monday at an event sponsored by America's Promise Alliance, an education foundation established by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife, Alma. Obama formally requested the money as part of his 2011 budget, submitted to Congress earlier this year.
"So if a school is struggling, we have to work with the principal and the teacher to find a solution," Obama said. "We have to give them a chance to make meaninful improvements.
"But if a school continues to struggle ... year after year, without any improvement, there has to be accountability," the president added, reflecting on a school district in Rhode Island that fired a broad swath of its teachers following years of poor performance.
Under Obama's plan, struggling public schools could obtain their share of the new $900 million in grants by pursuing one of four reform avenues — the turnaround, restart, closure or transformation "models," according to the White House. All have been subject to immense criticism by academic experts, who doubt their effectiveness.
The turnaround model would require low-performing schools to replace their principal and half their staffs. The restart approach would replace the school altogether with a charter system.
By contrast, the closure strategy would shutter the struggling school and require district administrators to enroll its former students in better-performing institutions. And the transformation plan would prescribe a series of changes to school curricula, governance and structure.
However, education experts remain doubtful that such tough, sweeping changes can produce the level of achievement White House officials desire. The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, long touted by former President George W. Bush, similarly sought to couple school performance with federal dollars, a system that lawmakers and experts alike have criticized.
Consequently, it remains unclear whether Congress will acquiesce and deliver the president the $900 million he requested.
But Powell, at least, offered his own appeal for that money on Monday, stressing it was only with a new commitment of federal education aid that the United States could graduate more than 90 percent of fourth-graders in the near future.
"If we achieve this, we will not only be a more healthy and prosperous nation, but we can also help realize President Obama’s goal of making the United States the global pacesetter of college graduation by 2020," Powell wrote in a post on the White House blog.
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