Just as students around the nation are heading back to school, U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan announced which of these student’s states won the Race to the Top and which lost: 9 states and the District of Columbia are the Race to the Top winners in Round Two.
Here is a list of the big winners, the amounts they will receive and their score:
• District of Columbia: $75 million. Score: 450.0• Florida: $700 million. Score: 452.4
• Georgia: $400 million. Score: 446.4
• Hawaii: $75 million. Score: 462.4
• Maryland: $250 million. Score: 450.0
• Massachusetts: $250 million. Score: 471.0
• New York: $700 million. Score: 464.8
• North Carolina: $400 million. Score: 441.6• Ohio: $400 million. Score: 440.8
• Rhode Island: $75 million. Score: 451.2
The winners join first-round winners Delaware and Tennessee.Although it is difficult to tell how the work to come will impact special education, a few key themes are clear. These states all presented ideas for dramatic and bold approaches to turning around low performing schools and changes to teacher evaluation systems and teacher tenure.
Importantly, several states included early learning initiatives in their applications and thus funds in these states will be spent for this purpose. Application narratives for all Phase 2 applicants can be found here.
The Race to the Top competition was created by Congress in 2009 as part of the $787 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the federal economic-stimulus program. CEC commented on the proposed priorities and encouraged the Department to include a specific focus on special ad gifted education throughout. While there is no specific priority given to that area, all of the changes proposed by the winners will impact special and gifted education and CEC will closely monitor how these impact education.
If your state won the competition, we would love to hear from you how you think it will impact special and gifted education. Contact us at pubpol@cec.sped.org ! We look forward to hearing from you.
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