Race To The Top is an education funding program that was created with the 2009 recovery act. Race To The Top uses a point system to who should get a portion of the $4 billion budget. Only states that build a certain
number of “points” could be funded in one of the two rounds of funding. Round 1 funding has been announced, and many states are desperate in hopes of getting some of the same day cash loans of round 2 Race To The Top funding.
Race To The Top Basics
Race To The Top developed a scoring system for
school reforms based on 500 points. No single improvement in educational policy is worth over 58 points
- most are worth between 10 and 40 points. If the state “makes education funding a priority” they get 10 points. Showing a progressively diminishing achievement gap is worth 30 points. A universal academic standard throughout the state is worth 40 total points. There are 10 states that have opted to participate in Race for the Top. The Department of Education has the final say on winners, and the awards are based on both points and the number of
students.
Round 1 winners of Race To The Top
The first round of Race To The Top awarded money to only two states. Delaware and Tennessee will both get Race To The Top money.
Delaware can be awarded about $ 107 million and Tennessee will be awarded as much as $ 502 million for their education budgets. The Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, admitted that having only two winners leaves out many states. Duncan said that states that would like the money have had a fire lit under them. It turns out that support of teachers’ unions for the reforms were the clinching factor for these two states.
Desperate for
Round 2 Race To The Top
The Race To The Top fund, when it was created, had relatively few rules from Congress. The judged point system Arne Duncan created weighs a
state’s reforms with their Race To The Top points. One concern that states have expressed is how the point system ties a principal’s performance to student achievement. Many states have questioned why, with cash to lend, the government is not distributing the cash equally to save states from education spending budget cuts. Most states are fighting huge spending budget deficits, and education is often one of the first areas where cuts are made. .
