Florida's RTTT: Jobs Program for Corporate and University Consultants

They don't call it Race to the Trough for nothin'. From the Orlando Sentinel. Ht to Susan Ohanian.

. . . .Florida has asked for $1.1 billion of the $4.35 billion available nationwide in Race to the Top grants.

What immediately became clear when I scrolled through the state's proposed spending plan is that "consultants" will make out like bandits.

If the state gets the whole $1.1 billion it asked for (which some say is a very long shot), the Department of Education would spend half and school districts that agreed to take part would share half.

While there are as yet no plans on how individual districts would use their share of the money, the state has suggested to the dollar how it will spend its $570,811,435.

And "contractual" expenditures, including busloads of consultants, would account for $462,815,452.

I'm still looking, but here are a few examples.

To help districts set up new systems to evaluate teachers and administrators -- 60 consultants at a cost of $15 million.

To help districts figure out how to compensate teachers and administrators for getting better performance from students, the state plans to contract with 63 financial consultants at a cost of $45 million.

And there is $10.7 million for consultants to develop "lesson study tool kits" so teachers can study "effective lesson development."