Michael Stein

At its Jan. 5 study session, the Mamaroneck School Board voted unanimously to sign a memorandum of understanding that would give the district a portion of federal “Race to the Top” funds, should New York State be one of the states that “wins” this race for new federal funds.

According to the Washington Post, “Race to the Top is the crown jewel of the Obama administration's education reform agenda and the largest-ever discretionary federal grant program for public schools.”

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama suggested adding $1.4 billion to the current total of $4.35 billion.

Just days before winter break, the New York State Education Department alerted the district that it had only until Jan. 8 to sign the memo and return it to Albany in order to qualify for Race to the Top money.

If New York State is one of the “winners,” the state could receive $700 million. More important to our district, Mamaroneck schools could receive $60,000 or more.

According to the Larchmont Gazette, Superintendent Paul Fried said that the speed with which the district was asked to act felt “funny” but recommended that the district execute the memorandum. 

By executing the memo, the Mamaroneck School District agreed to various educational reform initiatives. Several, such as the revised teacher evaluation procedure, are already in place.

Others, like improving the use of assessments to guide the way teachers teach, are a focus of the district’s current goals. 

Regarding certain reforms, Fried said to the Larchmont Gazette, “they are flies in the ointment.” The district did not commit to two items in the state plan that involve looking at student growth as a measure of teacher effectiveness and using that and other data to set teachers’ salary or retention. These cannot be implemented without renegotiating the district’s contract with its teachers.

Mamaroneck Teachers’ Association President Ann Borsellino advised Fried that the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), a state federation of teachers’ unions, was counseling against signing the memorandum.

Ultimately, according to the district’s Jan. 7 press release and the Larchmont Gazette, Borsellino signed the memorandum after “carefully reviewing the documents and selecting only the areas we believe will benefit our district.”

Unfortunately, as of now, the outlook for New York State is not good.  According to the Washington Post, while New York school districts put together a good application, the state legislature failed to remove a cap on the number of charter schools, as required by the federal program. Thus, it seems likely that New York will lose the race this time around.