On March 29, 2010, Ed.gov posted a press release with the very first two winners of distributions from the Race to the Top Grant. According to the press release:
The $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund is an unprecedented federal investment in reform. The program includes $4 billion for statewide reform grants and $350 million to support states working together to improve the quality of their assessments. The Race to the Top state competition is designed to reward states that are leading the way in comprehensive, coherent, statewide education reform across four key areas:
- Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace;
- Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals how to improve instruction;
- Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
- Turning around their lowest-performing schools.
Forty states and the District of Columbia submitted applications for the first phase of grants. Delaware (who will receive about $100 million) and Tennessee (who will receive about $500 million) were selected from among 16 finalists who presented their proposals to panels of peer reviewers earlier this month.
Currently, the reviewers are processing the Phase II applications. Only 35 states and the DoC applied for Phase II. To see if your state (which IL is one) applied, click here. What's super cool is you can check out your state's application, scores and reviewer comments from Phase I. Hopefully IL wins a part of the initiative to keep jobs and boost quality of education! Let's go Illinois!
No comments:
Post a Comment