(From The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2010)
By STEPHANIE BANCHERO
The Obama administration on Tuesday named 18 states and the District of Columbia as finalists in the race for federal money to help overhaul troubled schools.
Thirty-five states and the district applied for part of the $3.4 billion available under the Race to the Top competition. The finalists are Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the finalists during a speech Tuesday at the National Press Club, where he called the competition part of a “quiet revolution” sweeping America to transform public education. The program “has unleashed an avalanche of pent-up education-reform activity,” Mr. Duncan said. “It is absolutely stunning to see how much change has happened at the state and local level.”
Race to the Top, the centerpiece of Mr. Duncan’s efforts to push innovation, aims to reward states that promote charter schools–public schools run by non-government entities–tie teacher evaluation to student performance and adopt rigorous learning standards.
Since it was rolled out last year, the competition has won support from education reformers and enjoyed bipartisan support. But in the last few weeks it has come under intense scrutiny.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted to slash $800 million from the program earlier this month. The Senate rejected those cuts, but on Monday, a group of civil-rights leaders met with Mr. Duncan to express their unhappiness with the program’s competitive nature, which they say leaves many low-income and minority schools wanting for resources.
Some expressed disappointment Tuesday with the number of finalists, arguing some states did not adopt dramatic enough changes to earn placement on the list. Kentucky, for example, does not allow charter schools, a centerpiece of Mr. Duncan’s education agenda.
Mike Petrilli, of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, said only seven or eight states have strong applications and he worried Mr. Duncan would reward money to “unworthy” states.
“If you give money to states that have not really embraced reform, then you can kiss reform goodbye,” said Mr. Petrilli, whose non-profit education policy group advocates for tough education standards.
Mr. Duncan promised to get tough during the awarding period and fund only the states with the best applications.
Race to Top began last year with $4.35 billion. Mr. Duncan set aside $350 million for a separate competition to improve student assessments and awarded $600 million to Delaware and Tennessee in the first round of the competition. That leaves $3.4 billion to be given out in the second round.
The Education Department used a panel of outside judges to score each application based on 19 criteria, including willingness to open charter schools, efforts to link teacher evaluations to student achievement and dedication to transforming the lowest-performing schools. States were graded on a scale of zero to 500 points.
Finalists will make formal, in-person presentations before a judging panel in August. Winners will be named in September, and Mr. Duncan said he expected to pick 10 to 15.
Race to the Top has dangled millions of dollars in front of cash-starved states, encouraging at least 23 of them to overhaul education policies. Colorado, for example, made it tougher for teachers to earn tenure and easier for them to lose it. Illinois and New York lifted the cap on the number of charter schools. Michigan and Massachusetts passed laws allowing state intervention in poorly-performing schools or districts.
The federal competition even convinced 29 states to adopt a set of common learning standards, dictating what students should know at each grade level in math and language arts.
Illinois State Supt. of Education Christopher Koch worries that, if his state does not win, it will slowing down plans, including overhauling how teachers are evaluated. “When you are in a fiscal crisis, like we are, it makes it much tougher to get things done in the aggressive timeline we have set out,” he said. “Reform isn’t free.”