Race to the Top Roundup

Last week Delaware and Tennessee were selected from among 16 finalists as winners of the first phase of Race to the Top (RTTT) grants. Peer reviewers gave both states high marks for their commitment to reform from key stakeholders, including elected officials, teacher's union leaders and business leaders. In both states, all school districts committed to implementing RTTT reforms. Both states also have aggressive plans to improve teacher and principal evaluation, use data to inform instructional decisions and turn around their lowest-performing schools. Both states have put in place strong laws and policies to support their reform efforts. As winners of the first phase of the competition, Delaware will receive approximately $100 million and Tennessee $500 million to implement their comprehensive school reform plans over the next four years.

Importantly, both Delaware and Tennessee have been leaders of the college- and career-ready agenda for years – as members of the American Diploma Project Network and two of the twenty states with graduation requirements set at a level that prepare students for any and all steps after high school – and their success in RTTT is a natural progression of that leadership.  

"We set a very high bar for the first phase," U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a press release. "With $3.4 billion still available, we're providing plenty of opportunity for all other states to develop plans and aggressively pursue reform."

Applications for Phase 2 are due on June 1, 2010. To help states as they prepare their proposals and to continue the nationwide dialogue on education reform, the Department of Education has posted all Phase 1 applications, peer reviewers' comments and scores available on its Web site.

To help state leaders take advantage of this exceptional competition, Achieve prepared the Race to the Top: Accelerating College and Career Readiness guides. The guides look at RTTT through a college- and career-ready lens, offering specific advice and promising practices to help ADP Network leaders build on the work they have already begun and maximize the new opportunities presented through RTTT. Achieve has also developed two additional briefs focused on building support and engagement from postsecondary stakeholders for states' RTTT plans and planning for success and sustainability. More…