EdVANTAGE Blog

The U.S. Education Department has confirmed that Delaware and Tennessee are the only first round winners in the federal government’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top (RTTT) systemic reform initiative.

New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner issued this response,

While our application placed us among the finalists, the United States Education Department has announced that New York is not among the two first round winners in the Race to the Top competition. We will closely analyze the USED reviewers’ response and will revisit our application with a view to submitting a successful second round plan that advances the Regents’ education reform agenda. Critical to a positive outcome will be the legislative changes the Regents proposed prior to the submission of the Round 1 application – changes that will not only strengthen our application, but will bring important benefits to education in New York State. For the sake of our 3.1 million children, we cannot allow this critical opportunity to undertake vital reforms to slip away.

The Department announced that, “Delaware will receive approximately $100 million and Tennessee $500 million to implement their comprehensive school reform plans over the next four years.”

A second round of competition will be conducted, with applications due on June 1.  The selection of only two states as winners, one small and one mid-sized, leaves roughly $3.4 billion on the table for round two.

The Washington Post noted, “Duncan’s decision to name only two initial winners gives the Obama administration continued leverage to upend the status quo in public education. It also squelches any suggestion that Duncan would seek to spread the money around as much and as fast as possible to help Obama win favor in key political states.”

The New York Times reports that Georgia and Florida finished third and fourth.

The Times also described the priorities of the RTTT initiative and observed,

Tennessee has long had a student-data tracking system that allows it to trace student achievement to individual teachers, and in its proposal the state promised to adopt an advanced statewide teacher evaluation system by the 2011-12 school year. Currently, teacher evaluation systems there, as in most states, are designed by school districts

Delaware already has a statewide annual teacher evaluation system, and has recently adopted regulations requiring that those evaluations be based on growth in student achievement, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality, which rated the finalists’ proposals.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan noted, “Perhaps most importantly, every one of the districts in Delaware and Tennessee is committed to implementing the reforms in Race to the Top, and they have the support of the state leaders as well as their unions.”

Secretary Duncan also explained that his Department will be releasing information that will illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of each state’s application.  He said, “We want to help states improve their proposals and share great ideas. On our Web site, we’re posting the scores for every application and all of the reviewers’ comments. By the end of next week, we’ll post the video of every finalist’s presentation to the peer reviewers.”

The information will be posted here.

New York has nine weeks to revise its application.

As its second round application takes shape, the State Education Department will again be asking superintendents, board presidents and local teacher union presidents sign memoranda of understanding indicating support for the reform initiatives in the revised plan.