The deadline has arrived, and 40 states and D.C. are hoping to win a share of a 4.35 billion dollar pie that the Obama Administration is calling the “Race to the Top.”
It’s a massive gamble on Washington’s part, an effort to change state and local education policies by dangling the carrot of big dollars in front of states and school districts that are desperately trying to make ends meet. Washington wants more charter schools, merit pay for teachers, and plans for putting the best teachers in the worst schools.
In the weeks before the applications were due, we watched legislators and educators in Colorado, Maryland and other states planning their strategies. Some states changed laws just to qualify to compete, while others rewrote policies in hopes of increasing their chances of winning.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, some states will walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars, while others will be left without a cent.
Who will get some of the money? We look into the race preparations.
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This video is part of our series covering the Race to the Top. Watch all related videos and listen to more podcasts here.
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January 19, 2010 at 6:17 pm
William L. Taylor says:
Yes, providing for public education is a state responsibility and the state has broad discretion to set the terms. But the federal government can under our Constitution use its taxing and spending power to exercise reasonable regulation over the expenditure of any federal funds the state chooses to accept. If the state finds the federal conditions unacceptable it can forego the funds. (Experience shows that states will not reject funds). It has been clear since the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education that the federal government has both the authority and responsibility to provide equal educational opportunity for students and to strike down the remnanants of discrimination. And it is time for thoughtful commentators to stop mouthing platitudes arguing that the federal government is powerless to use a program like Race to the Top to secure real educational improvement for students who need it the most.