U.S. Names Education
Grant Winners
By SAM DILLON
Delaware and Tennessee beat out 38 other states and the District of Columbia to win a share of $4 billion in federal education grants, convincing the Obama administration that they have bold plans for overhauling their public school systems.
Delaware is to be awarded about $100 million and Tennessee about $500 million.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the two states had won because they had written new laws to support their policies and had marshaled overwhelming statewide support from teachers, school districts and business leaders for comprehensive school improvement plans.
“We got 100 percent sign-on,” said Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, a Democrat.
By announcing only two winners in the first round, Mr. Duncan held to his vow that only a small number of states with extremely ambitious plans would prevail in the Race to the Top competition, which aims to promote innovation by rewarding a few states for exemplary progress in areas that President Obama considers crucial to education reform.
Georgia and Florida came in third and fourth, but won no money.
The president’s goals include expanding charter schools, reworking teacher evaluation systems, improving states’ student-data tracking systems and turning around the lowest-performing schools.
One highlight of Delaware’s proposal was a new state law that allows teachers rated as “ineffective” for three years to be removed from the classroom, even if they have tenure, the department said.
Tennessee passed a law that will allow the state to intervene in failing schools and will permit student academic growth to be used in educator evaluations.
Forty states and the District of Columbia submitted proposals for the competition in January, more than had been originally expected, in part because plunging tax revenues in the recession have left states hungry for federal money.
New York came in 15th of the 16 finalists. New York’s naming as a finalist had been a surprise because the Legislature did not eliminate caps on the number of charter schools, despite having been pushed to do so by both Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. David A. Paterson.
Mr. Duncan had said political influence would play no part in the competition. But by choosing two states with Democratic governors, and by eliminating several strong contenders with Republican governors, including Florida and Georgia, the administration may face grumbling.
Andy Smarick, a Republican who served in the White House and in the Department of Education under President George W. Bush, said, “I don’t think that political influence was a primary determinant here, but it could have had a secondary effect” because Democratic leaders in both states persuaded teachers’ unions to support their proposals.
Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, said in an interview that Republicans like former Senator Bill Frist had contributed a lot to the state’s proposal, but that his own role in persuading the Tennessee Education Association, a teachers’ union, to sign on had been important, too.
“I was able to get the T.E.A. to accept some things that probably a Republican wouldn’t have gotten done,” Mr. Bredesen said.
Florida and Louisiana were considered by many analysts to have strong chances to win. But the largest teachers’ union in Florida urged its locals not to support the plan. And in Louisiana, only 28 of the 70 districts supported the state’s plan, which alarmed school board officials by calling for forceful interventions in hundreds of failing schools.
From among the 41 applicants, 16 first-round finalists were chosen on March 4 — Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Using a 500-point scoring rubric, the reviewers allotted 454.6 points to first-place Delaware, while the District of Columbia, which came in last among the finalists, got 402 points. All states except the winners announced Monday were eligible to submit proposals for the competition’s second round, due on June 1, and Mr. Duncan said he would probably pick “10 to 15” states as second-round winners in September. They will split the $3.4 billion that remains.
Mr. Obama has requested an additional $1.3 billion to extend the competition next year.
The New York Times
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