Bailing Out of Race To The Top

In this post I quoted an author who suggested California should stop trying to get Race to the Top money from the feds, keep our own state standards (which are for the most part excellent standards), and save the money that would have to be spent on new standards, textbooks, teacher training, etc. Now we can read the same suggestion in a local Los Angeles paper:

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown announced to a stunned audience last week that he will have to cut California's education budget by 20 percent to 25 percent, and that this will involve unprecedented and painful cuts to our schools. His message was that services once considered essential will now be subject to elimination. It is in this context that we need to take a hard look at the costs we incurred under the Schwarzenegger administration when we accepted provisions of President Barack Obama's education initiative, Race to the Top, an unfunded mandate of the first order, costing millions and not at all essential.

The state's actions to date on Race to the Top have not involved Brown, but he can and should act to extricate us from the mess we've been handed...

If Brown is going to cut schools to the bone, he needs to cut the fat first. He should move quickly to pull out from our agreement to drop the standards, and he should present a tough negotiating stance, notably lacking in the last administration, regarding any further expensive ideas from Washington.

Sounds eminently reasonable to me.