I’m from Washington, and I’m Here to Disappoint You
Lindsey Burke /
The Department of Education today released the names of the 16 finalists in the competition for federal Race to the Top (RttT) grants. The finalists include the District of Columbia and 15 states: Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In all, 40 states had applied for the grants. In March, state leaders will come to Washington to deliver presentations on why their states merit a slice of the $4.35 billion in grants. Winners will be announced in April.
The more than $4 billion RttT initiative is the largest discretionary fund an education secretary has ever had the opportunity to work with. As part of the overall $100 billion allocated to the Department of Education as part of the economic “stimulus” plan passed last year, RttT was supposed to be a means of spurring states to implement the types of innovative education reforms that the administration thought would spur academic achievement. Yet, the group of states that made the first cut on the way to a grant was a numerous one – conventional wisdom was that far fewer states would make the first cut.