Race to the Top Winners Announced
Lindsey Burke /
The administration has just announced its round one Race to the Top winners, and only two states – drum roll please – Tennessee and Delaware, made the cut. The stated purpose of $4.35 billion RttT program is to increase teacher quality, improve failing schools, enhance the quality of state assessments, and build data systems to measure student growth.
The identification of just two first-round winners falls short of the number most analysts predicted. While it is unclear as of yet exactly why those two states made the cut, the New York Times surmises:
Tennessee has long had a student-data tracking system that allows it to trace student achievement to individual teachers, and in its proposal the state promised to adopt an advanced statewide teacher evaluation system by the 2011-12 school year. Currently, teacher evaluation systems there, as in most states, are designed by school districts.