(From Education Week, March 29, 2010)
By MICHELE MCNEIL and LESLI A. MAXWELL
Delaware and Tennessee beat out 14 other finalists today to win the first-round competition for $4 billion in Race to the Top Fund grants, as U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan delivered on promises that he would set a “very, very high bar” for the economic-stimulus money.
Mr. Duncan praised the two states, which edged out front-runners Florida and Louisiana, for mustering strong district and teachers’ union support for their plans, for having superior data systems, and for submitting comprehensive proposals that touched “every single child” statewide.
“We now have two states that will blaze the path for the future of education reform,” Mr. Duncan said in a conference call with reporters (6.1MB|MP3). “This isn’t about funding nice pilot programs. This is about taking student achievement to an entirely different level, and doing it at scale.”
Delaware, which was ranked No. 1 on the competition’s 500-point grading scale, will win about $100 million, while Tennessee, which came in second, will garner about $500 million.
Georgia missed the cut by just over 10 points, coming in third, while Florida, Illinois, and South Carolina, in descending order, rounded out the top six. Forty states and the District of Columbia applied in round one of the competition.
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