Rick Hess responds here to this post from the other day. Worth reading because he makes many good points that I agree with relative to the competition. But he clouds a fundamental difference in our views on this. Criticizing public officials for bad decisions or bad judgment either proactively or retroactively relative to their public duties and asking tough questions is completely fair game – and in fact a vital part of the process in our system. Accusing, suggesting, insinuating, or otherwise hinting at bad faith and violations of the trust of a public office is fair game only to the extent it’s coupled with actual evidence rather than suppositions. Otherwise, it crosses a line and I think that line was crossed by some of Race to the Top critics, including Rick, especially because of the extent to which key officials were recusing themselves to avoid even the perception of any conflict of interest. An extent that I’ve argued (and Rick does) actually hurt the competition. More generally, as with Reading First, the public interest is ill-served by this sort of stuff.
This matters because we may be about to see some back and forth with regard to the outcome of the assessment competition today.
When I read Hess’ original post, I never got the impression that he was impugning anybody’s integrity. Intelligence, yes, but not integrity. Apparently, you (Rotherham) didn’t either, since you’re only bringing it up now.
Also, for what it’s worth, Andy, in some circles, it’s not considered polite to publicly characterize debating partners as “earnestly bleating.”
Hess is inconsistent. One day he attacks Arne Duncan for playing politics with the reviewers and rigging the competition (in the post Rotherham linked to Melody). The next he says the reviewers are not the “best and brightest” because of all the conflict of interest rules. He also accused Arne Duncan misleading people on RTtT and implied conflicts of interest. He has slowed down but was way out there.
BUT BUT BUT Rotherham is consistent to a fault. He’s wrong to compare this to Reading First. Anyone seen an IG investigation on Race to the Top yet?