Race to the Top
Funded as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, it was announced by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on July 24, 2009.
States competing for the grants were awarded points for enacting certain educational policies, instituting performance-based evaluations for teachers and principals based on multiple measures of educator effectiveness (tied to targeted professional development and feedback), adopting common standards (though adoption of the Common Core state standards was not required), adopting policies that did not prohibit (or effectively prohibit) the expansion of high-quality charter schools, turning around the lowest-performing schools, and building and using data systems.
[4][5] In order to be eligible, states couldn't have laws prohibiting the use of measures of student achievement growth in teacher evaluations.
In addition, the White House announced a $350 million federal grant funding the development of assessments aligned to the common standards.
On December 19, 2013, six additional states (Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont) were awarded a total of $280 million from the 2013 Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) fund.
[24] As an parts of Race to the Top, the U.S. Department of Education puts out an Annual Performance Report (APR), cataloguing the grantees' progress in implementing reform plans and meeting goals for student outcomes.
The APR includes updates on progress in meeting the invitation priorities in the approved plans (innovations for improving early learning outcomes; expansion and adaptation of statewide longitudinal data systems; P-20 coordination, vertical and horizontal alignment; and school-level conditions for reform, innovation, and learning).
In such integrated systems, students can access their assignments, grades and learning activities; parents can view the academic expectations of their child, and his or her school attendance and grades; and teachers and principals can access their students' data and find strategies and resources (e.g., sample lesson plans) to meet their instructional needs.
Teachers are using new data and tools to effectively and quickly check on students' progress and understanding in the course of a single session or over a few weeks.
Although the vast majority of states have competed to win the grants, Race to the Top has also been criticized by politicians, policy analysts, thought leaders, and educators.
[29] In explaining why Texas would not be applying for Race to the Top funding, then Governor Rick Perry stated, "we would be foolish and irresponsible to place our children's future in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in Washington.
[31] A coalition of civil rights organizations, including the Urban League, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition released a statement that "Such an approach reinstates the antiquated and highly politicized frame for distributing federal support to states that civil rights organizations fought to remove in 1965.
[34] Finally, the American Enterprise Institute released a report in September 2010 finding disparities in Race to the Top scores versus the education reform track records and ratings of states from outside, independent sources.
