(From The Wall Street Journal, July 27th, 2010)
By Barbara Martinez
New York has been named a finalist in the second round of the federal Race to the Top competition, allowing the state to inch a bit closer to a potential $700 million windfall for badly ailing education budgets.
That New York made the finalist list, announced Tuesday morning, is not surprising given that it was a finalist in the first round and has since made legislative changes that strengthened its original application. Only two states won funding in the first round of Race to the Top earlier this year; New York was deemed to have lost in part because it had a low charter-school cap and a weak teacher-evaluation system.
In May, the New York Legislature passed a law that more than doubled the charter-school cap and opened the way for a teacher-evaluation system that takes into account student test scores. Those two elements were negotiated with the teachers’ union, giving the state the added benefit of showing that its application for Race to the Top money had buy-in from several important constituencies.
New Jersey was also a finalist. The state, however, doesn’t appear to be as strongly positioned as New York going into the final round. While New Jersey’s application made bold promises about teacher evaluations and other areas, those assurances were not backed up by any legislative moves nor agreements from the teachers’ unions.
“One could argue that New Jersey has a lot of work to do before they could carry on a state-wide reform effort,” said Charles Barone, federal policy director of Democrats for Education Reform.
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.
-Stephanie Banchero contributed to this report.