WHAT a TANGLED WEB We WEAVE.....

Bid for Race to the Top school funds may go down to the wire 

Some on state board of education have reservations

By LORI HIGGINS

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER 

The head of the State Board of Education said she wants to hold off on signing Michigan’s application to receive up to $400 million in federal stimu lus funds.

“I would like to see the whole plan before I sign it,” Kathleen Straus of Detroit, the board president, said at a State Board of Education meeting Tuesday. “I want to make sure it says what I think it does.”

The state plans to send its application by express mail Monday, a day before the dead line for the federal Race to the Top Program, a $4.35-billion competition that will award se lected states with money to support school reform.

The Signatures of Gov. Jen nifer Granholm, state schools Superintendent Mike Flana gan and Straus are required on the application. The final wording won’t be available un til Sunday, state officials told Straus.

So far, the Michigan De partment of Education has re leased only summaries of its plan. But it was clear Tuesday that feelings are mixed.

Board member Nancy Dan hof, for instance, said there have been many misunder standings in the community about the state’s reasons for submitting an application. “It is not to rubber-stamp a feder al program in order to get mon ey. It is because it’s the right thing to do for children,” Dan hof of East Lansing said.

But board member Mari anne Mc Guire of Detroit ex pressed strong reservations, saying she thought teachers were bearing much of the bur den of the increased account­ability that comes with the state’s plan. “I’m not really seeing a lot of fairness with this plan,” Mc Guire said.

One of the biggest criti cisms the state has received is that the plan sets state policy on how student achievement growth will be used when eval uating teachers. But Flanagan said it’s up to local school districts and their unions to bargain over how that would happen.

“It isn’t imposed by the state,” Flanagan said.

Straus said that’s not clear in the summary the Michigan Department of Education posted on its Web site Satur day. 

■ CONTACT LORI HIGGINS: 313-222-6651 OR LHIGGINS@FREEPRESS.COM