White House Sets Rules for Race to the Top

States News Service

November 5, 2009

Providing a high-quality education to every young American is vital to the health of the United States and the strength of its economy. In a 21st-century world, education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity, and success is a prerequisite.

With that in mind, President Barack Obama recently presented states with a challenge and the opportunity to compete in a program designed to spur systemic reform and embrace innovative approaches to teaching and learning in Americas schools.

Backed by a historic $4.35 billion investment, the reforms contained in the Race to the Top program will help prepare America’s students to graduate ready for college and career, and enable them to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world.

In the coming weeks, the U.S. Department of Education will issue the final application and guidance for states under the Race to the Top. This competition will be conducted in two rounds—the first starting this month and the second in June of next year—with winners announced in April and September 2010.

To be eligible to compete, states must have their second-round State Fiscal Stabilization applications approved by the U.S. Department of Education and not have any legal, statutory or regulatory barriers to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for evaluation purposes.

The Race to the Top emphasizes the following reform areas:

• Designing and implementing rigorous standards and high-quality assessments by encouraging states to work jointly toward a system of common academic standards. That system must build toward college and career readiness, and include improved assessments designed to measure critical knowledge and higher-order thinking skills.
• Attracting and keeping great teachers and leaders in Americas classrooms by expanding effective support to teachers and principals; reforming and improving teacher preparation; revising teacher evaluation, compensation and retention policies to encourage and reward effectiveness; and working to ensure the most talented teachers are placed in the schools and subjects where they are needed the most.
• Supporting data systems that inform decisions and improve instruction by fully implementing a statewide longitudinal data system, assessing and using data to drive instruction, and making data more accessible to key stakeholders.
• Using innovation and effective approaches to turn around struggling schools by asking states to prioritize and transform persistently low-performing schools.
• Demonstrating and sustaining education reform by promoting collaborations between business leaders, educators and other stakeholders to raise student achievement and close achievement gaps, and by expanding support for high-performing public charter schools, reinvigorating math and science education, and promoting other conditions favorable to innovation and reform.

In July, the U.S. Department of Education issued a notice of proposed priorities under the Race to the Top and has received more than 3,700 comments from approximately 1,200 respondents on the various components of the program, including comments from nine governors, 20 state education officials, and more than 200 education associations and organizations. All comments to the Race to the Top are available at www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html.

States and communities across the nation have recently undertaken efforts designed to promote education reforms that are consistent with the principles reflected under the Race to the Top:

• Missouri became the 48th state, along with the District of Columbia, to join a national partnership led by the National Governors Association and the Chief State School Officers to develop a common core of new, rigorous college and career-ready standards in reading and math.
• California recently enacted legislation to enable student achievement data to be linked to teacher and principal performance. Indiana now permits the use of student performance data for teacher evaluation, and Wisconsin, with the support of the state teachers union, has recently introduced and is considering legislation to do the same. New York is also considering similar legislation.
• Illinois, Louisiana and Tennessee have all recently altered laws or policies affecting public charter schools to enable their expansion and success. Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Ohio and Rhode Island have recently advanced policies to preserve and strengthen public charter schools. Similar efforts are being considered in California, Idaho, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan and North Carolina.
• Delaware has recently developed a new system of teacher evaluation that incorporates student achievement and sets classroom goals for teachers evaluated through various measures of student learning and growth. The system allows teachers, principals and school administrators to engage in a process focused on improving teacher practice and increasing student success.
• Austin, TX, has developed an innovative approach to performance-based compensation and career advancement for teachers that rewards successful teachers who improve the achievement and growth of their students and who take on additional roles and responsibilities, such as mentoring new teachers.
• Educators and city leaders in Jefferson County, CO, have collaborated to develop an alternate teacher compensation system focused on student learning, teacher learning and teacher leadership. The proposed system would include multiple measures of student learning and growth gathered from the states reading and math assessments. It would also incorporate incentives and goals for teams of teachers and a restructuring of the school day and possibly the school year.
• New Haven, CT, recently ratified a new four-year contract for their teachers, including a new teacher evaluation system that considers student learning gains in the assessment of teacher performance and that identifies and provides interventions for struggling teachers through a peer-assistance and review program. New Haven will also promote a new process for changing traditional conditions in schools, enabling reforms such as expanding the school day, and will facilitate the conversion of underperforming schools into charter schools, where the school principal will select and build his or her instructional team.