Race to the Trough as stealth policy

Mike Klonsky provided a link to a KCRW Public Radio show featuring Richard Rothstein, former New York Times education reporter and co-author of the important book Grading Education, and Peter Cunningham, chief flack for the US Department of Education.  As Klonsky notes, it was like punching a marshmellow (for Rothstein), because Cunningham came across as a nitwit with nothing coherent to say in defense of the Race to the Trough.  Cunningham basically says, yeah, most state's standardized tests suck and the NCLB accountability scheme sucks, but to change those, we'd have to change the law, and we have to spend this money quick, so we don't have time to change the law yet.  You could charitably say that his argument amounts to a pathetic version of "When you're stuck with lemons, make lemonade," although it comes across more like, "We're stuck with PCBs, so we we're making pickles."

Although Rothstein communicates very well, most of critical points he raises (and this is not meant as a dig at him) about the stultifying, curriculum-narrowing, damaging effects of ever-greater reliance on standardized testing are not really new.  (It was surprising that Cunningham hadn't seen these criticisms coming and prepared to address them better -- after all, that is his job -- but he's a nitwit.)

One point Rothstein brought up that hadn't occurred to me (around minute 39 of the show) was that Race to the Trough really should not even exist.  RttT was part of the ARRA economic stimulus/jobs creation bill.  An objection of ARRA opponents to the bill was that it would be used as an underhanded means of pushing Obama's preferred policies.  And RttT is certainly that.  Oh, yes, it is providing jobs for plenty of  educational snake-oil salesmen, but they probably rank only slightly below bankers and lawyers in popular esteem.  Now admittedly, $3.5 billion does not seem like a whole lot of money in comparison to the bank bailout -- but I would think it could be used to create quite a few jobs. 

And Cunningham, of course, simply missed Rothstein's point and said  that using ARRA funds to drive policy was a fine and noble thing to do.  That sentiment should make him an honored guest at a Tea Party or two.