U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the opening of an unprecedented federal grant program geared toward major education reform nationwide Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Education will accept the applications for the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” fund, which will distribute grants among states where the department can measure changes in methods and student achievement in public schools.
“This is going to be a very vigorous competition,” Duncan said in a conference call. “It’s like the difference between going to the Olympics and now trying to get the gold medal.”
States will be evaluated through a competitive application process, according to Duncan. The final application released yesterday was revised to accommodate the feedback from the more than 1,000 people who responded to the original draft.
Duncan pointed out the difficult economic climate coupled with an educational crisis throughout America triggered the need for reform.
“There are millions of children today that we aren’t serving well,” Duncan said. “The student drop rate is 30 percent, and 1.2 million students drop out each year — that’s an education and economic catastrophe.”
According to the DOE website, states must have no legal barriers against linking student growth and achievement data to evaluation for teachers and principals to qualify for the program.
In the two-round competition, states that do not qualify for the funding in the first round will have a second opportunity to do so in the second round. Duncan noted any amount of states could be chosen for the first round if the state proves it is qualified to lead the way for the country.
“We’re going to fund those states that have demonstrated the ability to raise the bar and close the gap and have the capacity to get dramatically better,” Duncan said.
To ensure states spend their grant dollars appropriately, Duncan added the federal government will ensure accountability by watching the benchmarks of the spending throughout the selected states.
Duncan said the application for the grant will include a section asking about states’ innovations in charter schools.
In preparation for completing the application and eventual competition, the Wisconsin Legislature has passed bills which make the state compliant with federal standards. The bills passed would give superintendents the ability to turn around struggling schools as well as allow the state to improve K-12 and post-secondary educational systems through progress monitoring.
“We’ve taken another very important step forward and clearing away some of the barriers from getting the funding,” said Lee Sensenbrenner, spokesperson for Gov. Jim Doyle. “We’ll be making our application and it’s a very competitive process but it’s one we wouldn’t have been able to compete in had our Legislature and governor not acted.”
Christina Brey, spokesperson for the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said she agreed Wisconsin is ready for the challenge associated with the grant process.
“Wisconsin has a lot of things going for it; we feel we have a very strong charter school system [and that] we have the best charter schools in the nation,” Brey said. “A lot of innovation and great ideas come out of there.”
