…says the St. Louis Beacon.

The Beacon exposes the education reform landscape that we’ve been talking about for the past couple of weeks. They frame the conversation rightly with Arne Duncan’s crystal clear message:

When Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited St. Louis last summer, he said the program offered a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to create far-reaching improvement in the nation’s schools. Funding would favor states committed to innovation, such as:

* making decisions based on data,
* weeding out incompetent teachers and administrators,
* linking teacher pay to student performance, and
* turning around low-performing schools.

During his visit, Duncan urged Missouri to apply for a Race to the Top grant.

Next, they set up the attitudes in Missouri from key players who are making the decisions about how to react to this opportunity:

Missouri apparently will sit out the first lap of the Race to the Top program, a $4.3 billion school reform initiative enacted as part of the federal economic stimulus legislation….

Missouri Education Commissioner Chris L. Nicastro (right) has also praised the program, as an “outstanding opportunity” for Missouri — but last week said that time constraints and the hefty resources needed to write a strong application meant that Missouri wouldn’t be ready to apply until the second round of funding.

Drafting the grant itself poses some challenges, she added. The application would take more than 680 hours to complete. “Missouri will work with a writing group with a proven track record of successful grant-writing and reform leadership,” she said.

Last month, Nicastro told the Missouri Joint Committee on Education that a successful application would “require the best thinking of a diverse, representative group” from across the state, adding “I anticipate Missouri competing in the second round of grants due next spring.”

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said Nicastro, was working to convene a group to develop a proposal to recommend to Gov. Jay Nixon. DESE said Friday it would convene a town hall on Race to the Top for Nov. 23 or 24; the location hasn’t been announced.

I am glad to see that DESE will be holding a town hall (several would be better). But given the indicators we have, there is no reason that Missouri shouldn’t be going all out as a reasonably competitive state. It is certainly demanding – that’s why they called it “Race to the Top”, not “Meander to the Top”. Every month we wait, those funds will shrink as they’re distributed to other states.

Fortunately, some leaders are standing up to this attitude.

The Children’s Education Council of Missouri has Scott Rupp’s questions on Missouri’s lackadaisical approach to pursuing funding, and the Beacon picks up on this thought:

State Sen. Scott Rupp, R-Wentzville and a member of the Joint Education Committee, argues that it’s “irresponsible” not to apply this year.

Others who have taken issue with Missouri’s decision include Earl Simms, state director of the Children’s Education Council of Missouri, a pro-charter school organization.

Everybody complains about the state lacking money for schools, Rupp said, so this program might have been an opportunity to draw down more money. Some states, including California, have called special legislative sessions to bring their school laws in line with what’s required under Race to the Top. Rupp speculated that Missouri might have received up to $100 million, based on its percentage of the nation’s population.

Last summer, though, Duncan made it clear that the money would not be evenly distributed among states. The process will be extremely competitive, he stresssed, and some states may get nothing.

If Missouri waits and submits a stronger application with well-thought-out reforms full of public input and input from the education community, it’s possible this lost time may not be in vain. But the reasons given so far are not along those lines, and time lost is brain lost. Making a smart reform policy IS important, but we should also have as a close second moving quickly not just to secure needed funding, but to quickly get resources and policies that improve achievement into the classroom, into the lives of students, families and teachers.