Education Law

No make or break factor in RTTT

The Race is definitely on…and the finalists are: CO, DE, FL, GA, IL, KY, LA, MA, NY, NC, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, and DC.

At first glance, there seems to be no common patterns among these states for the phase I competition — about half of them are right-to-work states; some have charter school laws; some don’t; some have policies that link student achievement to teacher evaluations; some don’t. However, geographically, they tend to be from the south; Colorado is the only state from west of the Mississippi.

Boardbuzz was encouraged to hear Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, say that no one element is a make or break factor for states to be selected to receive a portion of the $4.35 billion RTTT funds. For example, Kentucky, which has no charter schools, was among the chosen. “Folks didn’t understand there are many factors (the peer reviewers) are looking at,” Duncan told reporters on a press call yesterday. “Every state has relative strengths and weaknesses. Charter will never be a determining factor.”

Neither will a state’s ability for mayoral takeover be a determining factor, Duncan added.

NSBA had been concerned about the tone of the administration’s emphasis on charter schools when the RTTT criteria were first proposed. There appeared to be a push for more charter schools regardless of whether they are of high quality.

The finalists will come to Washington to present their proposals on March 15. Duncan predicted that there will be “very few” winners for phase I and plenty of funds will be available for phase II. States that did not receive funds in phase I can apply for phase II.

To learn more about these competitive grants, NSBA has created numerous resources concerning RTTT.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on March 05, 2010 (boomark / email).