Race to the Top Guidelines announced!
November 18, 2009 -
On Tuesday, November 17th Commissioner Gendron analyzed and answered questions about the newly released guidelines for the Race to the Top Fund in our Education Committee meeting. The Race to the Top Fund is a national competition among states for $4.35 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The goals are to improve education quality, results statewide and student outcomes.
Maine will submit for the competitive grant on June 1st, 2010 (in the second round). We are eligible for $25-75 million grant (FYI - Maine's two year education budget is $2.3 billion budget). There are 500 total points that the state will be judged on and the following materials breaks down the sections (link this to attachment). Maine has some major strengths including our standards, assessments & data systems. However we will have to tweak many statutes in order to score well. For example we will have to identify our highly qualified teacher, leaders and principals and must demonstrate a link to each to student performance and show that we have innovative schools in Maine.
The United States Department of Education (USDOE) has released the guidelines for application for the $4 billion Race to the Top (R2T) program. R2T funds will be distributed to states on a competitive basis. Applications in the first round are due on January 19, 2010 and the second round will be due in the fall of 2010. If a state wins in the first round, it cannot apply again in the second round.
How will the winning states be chosen?
State applications will be judged on the following criteria:
A state's plan for developing great teachers & leaders - 28%
A demonstration of the state's overall reform agenda - 25%
The quality of the state's educational standards & assessments - 14%
The general quality of the application - 11%
A state's plan for turning around low-performing schools - 10%
The quality of the state's educational data systems - 9%
The state's plan for improving STEM - 3%
State awards
The USDOE has released an estimated range of what each state could expect to receive upon approval of its R2T application. Please note that the Department asserts it will not be bound by these estimates and can adjust the actual amount awarded to each state up or down.
Category 1-$350-$700 million
(California, Texas, New York, Florida)
Category 2-$200-$400 million
(Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey)
Category 3-$150-$250 million
(Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Washington, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Missouri, Maryland, Wisconsin)
Category 4-$60-$175 million
(Minnesota, Colorado, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Puerto Rico, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Connecticut, Utah, Mississippi, Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, Nevada)
Category 5-$20-$75 million
(New Mexico, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, District of Columbia)
How many states will win?
Using the proposed award figures, ECS staff estimates that approximately 20 states will win R2T funding, with a possible range of 16 to 27 states that could win. This is simply an estimate. The actual number of states could vary greatly depending on decisions made by the USDOE.
