Establishing \u201cInnovation Funds\u201d for community partnerships that enhance learning, creating professional development programs more aligned with federal education expectations, and establishing new frameworks for teacher evaluations are among the ways states awarded Race to the Top (RTT) grants have begun to used their share of the $4 billion given by the federal government in 2011 to improve K-12 school quality and effectiveness.<\/p>\n
First-year\u00a0state progress reports\u00a0were released by the U.S. Department of Education in January. But according UConn\u2019s Tammy Kolbe, an assistant research professor at the Neag School of Education\u2019s Center for Education Policy Analysis, it\u2019s far too early to speculate on the effectiveness of these or any reforms funded by the one-time grants\u2014though it\u2019s not too early to create an RTT evaluation plan. In fact, it\u2019s essential.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning states came up with plans for change, but do they have the capacity to implement that change, or ensure that it\u2019s meaningful, long-term change, rather than just a short-term fix?\u201d said Kolbe, lead author of \u201cAnd They\u2019re Off: Tracking Federal Race to the Top Investments From the Starting Gate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Written with University of Maryland education policy studies professor Jennifer King Rice and published in the January issue of\u00a0Educational Policy<\/em>, the article examines the influence of federal education priorities on grant proposals, explains grant parameters and how funds were awarded, outlines both winning states\u2019 and the government\u2019s intents, and stresses the need for a benchmarked evaluation system.<\/p>\n \u201cFive to 10 years from now, we\u2019ll need to have a tool that allows us to determine whether these grants made a difference; whether this money mattered. Establishing baseline expectations will be key to determining whether states achieved the significant and comprehensive education innovation, reform and improvements that RTT \u00a0grants were intended to provide,\u201d Kolbe said. \u201cThis was no small lump that was distributed. It was a significant\u2014historic\u2014distribution of grant funds larger than any state has ever seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and managed by the U.S. Department of Education, RTT\u00a0 was designed to \u201creward\u201d states with concrete plans and actions to:<\/p>\n Forty-six states (including Connecticut) and the District of Columbia competed for the funds which, when the 12 winners were chosen, led to grants of between $20 million and $700 million distributed over a four-year period. The application process was extensive and the competition fierce, with some states going as far as to change laws, regulations and teacher contracts to make themselves eligible to apply, or more likely to win, an award.<\/p>\n Winners were Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee.<\/p>\n \u201cBut is competition the best way to award funds designed to improve poor educational systems? States with more resources are very likely going to have the ability to put together better grant proposals than those with less resources,\u201d Kolbe explained, \u201cwhich means the needier state may not get the grant\u2014though one of the hopes for RTT is that it will have a trickle-down effect. That non-RTT states will see what RTT states are doing, and then look at how they can make similar changes in practice within their cost and resource restraints.\u201d<\/p>\n Tracking states\u2019 RTT fund plans and progress is the federal education department\u2019s Implementation and Support Unit, but local leaders need to track and monitor states\u2019 progress, too, Kolbe said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf RTT pans out as it was intended, local districts and states will have effective best-practices and programs to use as models to meet specific needs,\u201d Kolbe said. \u201cBut we need time to watch and see. Several RTT states plan to use the funds on short-term projects, but will that allow them to sustain needed educational improvements over the long haul? Also, will continued economic challenges affect states\u2019 abilities to sustain long-term change?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s also the issue of whether this kind of sizeable federal investment in education reform was a good one to make,\u201d Kolbe added. \u201cCan large grants better move states and localities closer to achieving national goals for public education?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Establishing \u201cInnovation Funds\u201d for community partnerships that enhance learning, creating professional development programs more aligned with federal education expectations, and establishing new frameworks for teacher evaluations are among the ways states awarded Race to the Top (RTT) grants have begun to used their share of the $4 billion given by the federal government in 2011 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":206652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2455],"class_list":["post-206651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:31:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206653,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206651\/revisions\/206653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/206652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206651"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=206651"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=206651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n