Slow progress on education keeps grant at ‘high risk’

Citing encouraging but nascent prog­ress and a lack of "conditions for reform," the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday it would keep Hawaii’s $75 million Race to the Top grant on "high-risk" status for at least five more months.

The extension of the status means Hawaii’s Race efforts will continue to be monitored closely and that the state could still lose the competitive federal grant aimed at making sweeping education reforms.

But starting June 1, the U.S. DOE will no longer require Hawaii to ask permission before it spends Race to the Top money, something the state has had to do since being placed on high-risk status in December.

"Hawaii has taken important steps in the right direction to address setbacks in their Race to the Top work over the last year," said Ann Whalen, U.S. DOE director of policy and program implementation, in a statement. "However, the program and Hawaii’s Race to the Top application set a high bar for success and their work still falls short of the accomplishments that the state set out to achieve at this stage of the grant."

State education officials said the U.S. DOE’s decision to extend the high-risk status, rather than take additional disciplinary action or rescind the federal grant, was positive news and evidence the Obama administration considered Hawaii’s education reform work substantive.

"I think we’ve worked really hard to get on track with our proj­ects, and I think they recognized that," said schools Superintendent Kathryn Mata­yo­shi, adding the state still has a lot of hard work ahead as it moves from the planning phase for many proj­ects to an implementation phase.

Officials noted the bulk of Hawaii’s Race grant has not yet been spent, since much of the spending is planned for the final two years of the four-year grant. As of April 27, Hawaii spent $5.9 million of its Race grant, awarded in August 2010, from about $4 million in December.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie said he spoke Friday to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who "acknowledged that Hawaii is making good prog­ress on our Race to the Top plans."

Abercrombie added, in a statement, "We will continue to press forward on these reforms with the objective of ending the high-risk status currently under review."

Whalen outlined the U.S. DOE’s decision to extend the high-risk status in a two-page letter to Abercrombie on Friday, saying that due to the "preliminary nature" of proj­ects under way and the "lack of necessary sustaining conditions for reform," Hawaii had not yet demonstrated substantial prog­ress on Race efforts.

The lack of "sustaining conditions" includes the absence of legislation requiring that teachers move to a performance management system and the lack of a union agreement on performance-based teacher evaluations.

Bills that would have mandated that the state take into account student performance in teacher evaluations, then use those ratings on high-stakes decisions such as tenure and compensation, failed at the Legislature this session following a major lobbying effort by the teachers union.

State Sen. Jill Tokuda, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said requiring performance evaluations for teachers was the "right thing to do" and would have demonstrated a commitment to make good on the state’s Race promises.

"A ratified contract would probably also speak volumes," said Tokuda (D, Kane­ohe-Kailua).

The teachers union strongly opposed the evaluation bills, saying they would have taken away teachers’ bargaining rights.

The move to a performance management system for teachers has emerged as among the most controversial aspects of Hawaii’s Race to the Top plans, at times overshadowing other reforms.

Teachers in January overwhelmingly rejected a proposed six-year contract that would have put a revamped evaluation system in place by the 2013-14 school year.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association announced this week it was planning to hold a second vote on the rejected deal because of the "urgency to preserve" Hawaii’s Race grant.

HSTA President Wil Okabe said Friday he is "encouraged" that the state will have more time to demonstrate prog­ress under Race to the Top and added that the "teachers’ reconsideration (of the January proposal) will include a review of the agreement provisions that address Race to the Top requirements for improved school performance that were never adequately explained to teachers."

The January tentative agreement, which the union says was rushed to a vote, was aimed at ending the labor dispute with teachers now in its 10th month. Teachers continue to work under a "last, best and final" contract offer imposed in July.

Officials have said the labor dispute — and the state’s failure to reach a union agreement on a revamped teacher evaluation system — contributed to the U.S. DOE’s decision in December to put Hawaii’s Race grant on high-risk status. But federal officials also noted an overall slow pace of Race reforms, pointing out that Hawaii missed most of its key Race targets in the first year of the grant.

Stephen Schatz, head of the DOE’s Office of Strategic Reform, said by comparison the state has met the majority of its deliverables under a revised "scope of work" submitted to U.S. DOE earlier this year.

Hawaii was among 10 winners — nine states and the District of Columbia — of a second round of Race grants in 2010, and onlookers nationally have remained skeptical about Hawaii’s ability to live up to the ambitious promises it made in its Race to the Top application.

Under Race to the Top, Hawaii has pledged to overhaul its education system, boosting student achievement, turning around low-performing schools and improving teacher effectiveness.

The decision Friday was reached after federal authorities conducted a comprehensive review of Hawaii’s Race prog­ress during a visit to the islands in March.

U.S. Sen Daniel Ino­uye, D-Hawaii, said in a statement that the state must now demonstrate that the prog­ress it has made "and the reform path forward are sustainable and permanent."

Among the biggest Race proj­ects for the state in the next school year will be the expansion of a proj­ect piloting a revamped teacher evaluation system. The pilot, whose evaluations have no consequences for teachers, will be in 82 schools in the coming school year, from 18 this year.

Tokuda said that the next five months will be critical for the state, and it’s vital that Race reforms continue to move forward.

"We need to make substantial prog­ress," she said. "We need to nail down a lot of timelines and just start checking off boxes."

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