The Journal Gazette, 600 W. Main St., Fort Wayne IN

Indiana’s failure to win a share of the $4 billion Race to the Top money is a disappointment when the cash-strapped state is starved for investment in its schools. But the failed proposal is worth noting for where Indiana stands in improving education and where it’s headed, as well as serving to remind Hoosiers that change is coming to Indiana schools, with or without federal dollars.

Tony Bennett, state superintendent of public instruction, has said the setback won’t alter the direction his department is taking. But before the state proceeds on the current course, it’s worth examining why the state didn’t emerge as a finalist. States were scored by independent reviewers on a 500-point scale tied to specific criteria, and it’s tough to ignore some glaring points:

•The states that emerged have strong central education agencies. In Bennett, Indiana’s Department of Education has a novice leader who fired about 100 experienced employees when he took office. Indiana’s application is filled with references to initiatives undertaken in just the last year, suggesting improvement wasn’t an ongoing effort. The proposal either ignores or dismisses improvement efforts made under Suellen Reed, Bennett’s predecessor, even though her efforts were well regarded.

•Federal reviewers couldn’t have overlooked Indiana’s $300 million in school budget cuts. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been insistent that stimulus dollars must not supplant state support for education.

•Unlike Georgia’s Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue, whose state is now a finalist, Gov. Mitch Daniels has never positioned himself as an “education governor”; slashing school funding confirmed that he’s not.

•Daniels’ comments to Dan Balz of the Washington Post last month put him in line as a potential challenger to President Obama. Louisiana, another Race to the Top finalist, might have a candidate in Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, but if he’s thinking of running, he hasn’t admitted it to a D.C. reporter.

•Charter school restrictions weren’t a deal-breaker. Kentucky has no charter schools; New York and Ohio rejected the federal push to lift the limits on charter school authorizations.

In Fort Wayne Community Schools, teachers, parents and taxpayers need to know the Race to the Top application might have added urgency to school reform efforts, but it was never the basis of them. The process of restructuring its high school curriculum goes back to 2006, and the deliberate attempt to develop better school leaders goes back even further; the Wallace Foundation awarded the district a $5 million grant for that purpose in 2002.

An infusion of more federal dollars would have helped the district move more quickly in turning around the 11 schools targeted for improvement – offering incentives to high-performing teachers to move to those schools, for example. Without the money, the work still must be done. The state has its own projects under way, including a system that assigns an identifying number to each teacher – and the college where they were trained – and collects student performance data to assess how the teacher is doing. The program will be fully implemented by next fall, according to the Race to the Top application.

The school turnaround model the state describes in its proposal is far less attractive than what FWCS is proposing for its schools. Race to the Top money might be out of reach, but the impetus for improvement is every bit as strong.