US Chamber of Commerce

Also in Issue 1, Volume 5:

Assessment Race Adds Impact to Common Standards Push

Supporting Innovation: A Role for Business

ED Defends School Turnaround Models

State-by-State Summary of RTTT Applications

At-a-Glance: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

States Scramble to Submit Phase II Race to the Top Applications

With the June 1st deadline quickly approaching, many states are putting together the final touches on their phase II Race to the Top (RTTT) applications for a share of the $4 billion initiative designed to encourage and reward states for creating the conditions for education innovation and reform.

In total, 38 states submitted optional “letters of intent ” to the Secretary. However, the final number of states applying will be lower, as Idaho has since backed out and Minnesota is likely to do the same.

While nearly all of these states participated in the first round competition, (in which Delaware and Tennessee were the only winners), several states will make this their first run, including: Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, and Washington.

Several of these newly participating states have recently enacted reforms which they hope to translate into competitive applications.  In Maryland, Gov. O’Malley passed a new education reform law, which included a requirement that student growth be a significant factor in teacher evaluations.  The State superintendent has since pushed for half of such evaluations to be based upon student progress.

Among the states who are not part of phase II, five competed in the first round, including Idaho, Indiana, Oregon, Virginia, and Wyoming.  However, many of these states faced multiple challenges to meeting the reform aspects of the RTTT applications.  Among these states, Indiana had the highest ranking score (23rd out of 41), while Oregon, 35th, had the lowest.

The lack of union support was the main reason given by Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, for not attempting RTTT for the second time.  According to press reports, he believed that in order to get full buy-in from the unions, the reforms would have to be watered down to the point where they would not meet the expectations of the competition.

A lack of support from unions also derailed Minnesota’s initial plans to compete for phase II funding. Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced in April that without the legislature’s ability to send him a bill to reform the teacher evaluation system, the state would not be applying.  Due to pushback from Minnesota’s union leaders, the state legislature ended its session in May without passing such reforms.

However, the lack of union support has not deterred other states from participating.  Rhode Island, which ranked 8th in the first round, has put a priority on gaining buy-in for their phase II application.  However, while Education Commissioner Deborah Gist has wide spread backing  from school districts—she has struggled to find unions willing to sign on to the effort.

As highlighted on the state’s RTTT website, Rhode Island’s first round application had the second highest score for the “Great Teachers and Leaders” section, as well as “almost perfect scores for our state standards, our assessment system our interventions in the lowest-achievement schools, and our new educators evaluation standard that are based on evidence of student growth.”

The State is clearly banking on Secretary Arne Duncan’s recent assertion that ED will fund bold reforms under RTTT, even without tremendous buy-in and the fact that a vast majority of the 500 point evaluation system focuses on reforms, not buy-in.

ED’s focus on reform may also be what has prompted at least a dozen states to aggressively push for new reforms in time for the June 1st deadline. For example:

• Connecticut, which ranked 25th, passed a broad reform bill touching on teacher evaluation, charter schools, and data systems;
• Iowa, which ranked 24th, has a new law focusing on reforms in the lowest performing schools; and
• Colorado, which ranked 14th,  passed a sweeping new teacher evaluation initiative which will base half of evaluations on academic progress.  In addition, to receive tenure, teachers will need three consecutive positive evaluations.

Progress is also being made in states such as New York, New Jersey, and Washington, to name just a few, where until recently reform seemed unlikely, if not impossible.

Given RTTT’s premise — to incentivize innovation and reform—it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t at least begun to deliver.

Download ICW's entire Education Stimulus Report (Vol. 1, Issue 5) (pdf)