New York Wins Education Funding Contest

New York is one of nine states, along with the District of Columbia, to have secured federal education funding through its placement in the nation-wide Race to the Top program which pitted various states against each other for a share of $3.4 billion in school aid, $700 million in New York’s case.

Race to the Top is a competitive grant program that is intended to reward states for improving standards and assessments, data collection and use, teacher effectiveness and distribution, as well as turning around struggling schools. State governments send their application to the federal government explaining how they have, or will, meet these goals and the Department of Education then scores them, eventually recognizing what it considers to be the top 10 applicants.

New York, in its application, outlined a number of reforms undertaken at the state level that it believes makes them worthy of the Race to the Top money. These include new laws that:

• establishes a new teacher and principal evaluation system that makes student achievement data a substantial component of how educators are assessed and supported;
• raises the charter school cap from 200 to 460;
• enables school districts to enter contracts with Educational Partnership Organizations (the term for non-profit Education Management Organizations in New York State) for the management of their persistently lowest-achieving schools and schools under registration review; and
• appropriates more than $20 million to the State Education Department to implement its longitudinal data system

The program is in its second round. During its first round New York placed 15 out of 16 finalist states.