Bad Omens for Wisconsin in the Race to the Top

The U.S. Department of Education is expected to announce by the end of this week the finalists for the Race to the Top grants that have been dominating national talk about education lately. Forty states, plus the District of Columbia, put in proposals to get some of the huge pie of $4.35 billion to be awarded for the what federal officials conclude are the most potent proposals for raising achievement in schools and cities where results until now have been poor.

Don’t expect Wisconsin to be among those tapped to move into the next stage of the first round of grants.  

At least two national bloggers who keep eyes on the process made predictions this week on who will stay in the running, and neither picked Wisconsin. Bloggers on the widely-read Education Week Web page picked Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Delaware, Indiana, Minnesota, and Colorado as finalists, and projected Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Tennessee, as the states that would get first round grants that could run to $100 million or more.

Thomas W. Carroll, who blogs for the City Journal Web site, picked seven states as the most likely to win shares of the Race to the Top money. They are Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, Delaware and Michigan.

There will be a second round of grants later this year, but Wisconsin is not likely to be in the center of contention then either, unless something happens that makes the state’s proposal appear like it’s going to change the status quo in more dramatic ways than the current proposal suggests.

That would almost surely require action by the Legislature on proposals such as giving the state superintendent of public instruction greater power over low performing schools, and there is little prospect currently for such action.

Two other notes from the education scene:

— Milwaukee Public Schools finance officials put together a report for the School Board (click where it says Item 1 on the left and look particularly for the last page) on how they came to the conclusion that fringe benefits for MPS employees will jump to 77 percent for next year, a figure that is causing great consternation in a large number of schools facing painful decisions on cutting staff for next year. The rate has jumped sharply in recent years, from around 60 percent. Settlement of labor contracts with employees, primarily teachers, could bring changes in that, but negotiations on contracts appear to be on a very slow track. Teachers are working under a contract that expired in June 2009.

—  At a meeting on Feb. 23, the Milwaukee School Board received annual reports from outside auditors. Board President Michael Bonds noticed that the auditors said MPS had unfunded commitments to pay retirees benefits (not including pensions) of $2.2 billion. The huge commitment to retirees, with no savings set aside to pay it, is one of the biggest financial threats facing the system. Bonds wanted to know whether it was true that MPS would be facing $5 billion in unfunded retiree benefits in five years, like news stories have said. Ron Vavrik, MPS budget chief, responded that the $2.2 billion total was from 2007. So will it be $5 billion by 2015? Vavrik said no — it’s projected to be $4.9 billion by 2016.

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