Good government decisions are never made in backrooms outside of ‘public debate,’ yet it appears that backroom decisions impacted the Sioux City Community School District last week.
The Federal Government announced last fall a second round of stimulus money offered up to those states who signed on to certain preconditions to affect school reform and improvement. This program has been titled ‘Race to the Top’ or RTTT. Several of the preconditions required by this program run counter to Iowa Code. Regardless of that fact, the Governor and the Iowa Department of Education officials decided to apply for these funds to help cover their inability to fund current and proposed budgets for education.
In order to comply with Federal rules, the Governor and ISEA (Iowa State Education Association) appear to have cut a deal that will dramatically alter current rules that Boards of Education and their administrations use to affect school improvement without input from other interested parties (i.e. Boards of Education, IASD, SAI, the Urban Education Network, parents, community members, students, and others who work for school improvement on a daily basis).
This is the kind of misguided decision process that costs all of us time, money, and a great deal of frustration. I appeal to the Governor and the Department of Education to apply sound principles of good government by allowing public discussion of these important issues, so that all interested parties can have a stake and a belief in these policies that we will all have to work under to improve our schools.
– Doug Batcheller, President of the Sioux City Community School District
