State Eligibility for Race to the Top Grants

Much speculation about state eligibility for Race to the Top funds has been circulating in the education arena since the draft guidelines and priorities for the funds were released in late July (final guidelines will be released in the fall with funds going out in early 2010). Race to the Top, a new competitive grant program authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), provides $4.35 billion to states to support advances in standards and assessments, state data systems, teacher distribution, and assistance to struggling schools (the four assurances required in the ARRA). The New Teacher Project, a non-profit that focuses on narrowing the achievement gap by improving teacher quality and is not involved in the distribution of Race to the Top funds, recently released a state scorecard (link updated) which analyzes each state's eligibility for funds based on the draft guidelines. This document provides some important insight into the state of education reform across the country.

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) scorecard judges states' eligibility for the Race to the Top funds based on five criteria:

• Eligibility Requirements: Whether a state has been approved for State Fiscal Stabilization Funds and allows student performance data for teacher evaluations;
• Standards and Assessments: Whether a state is a member of the common standards consortium and has plans to implement new high quality standards;
• Data to Support Instruction: Whether a state has a comprehensive longitudinal student data system and has plans to make it publicly available to improve instruction;
• Great Teachers and Leaders: Whether a state has alternative routes to teacher certification and uses data to determine teacher effectiveness; and
• Turning Around Struggling Schools: Whether a state has authority to intervene in low-performing schools and plans to turn around at least the bottom 5 percent of schools.

States are ranked from somewhat competitive to highly competitive and states that do not meet one or more selection criteria or eligibility requirements are identified.

According to TNTP, California, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin do not meet one or more of the eligibility requirements. While Pennsylvania has not yet been approved for SFSF monies, the remaining four states do not allow student performance data to be used in teacher evaluations.

Three states - Alaska, Missouri, and Texas - do not qualify based on the standards and assessments criteria because they are not participating in the common standards consortium. Only Indiana, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia fully qualify under this criterion.

The majority of states - 27 - do not fulfill Data to Support Instruction criteria at all. Only six states qualify fully: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, and Utah. These states have the most developed data systems and ensure that the data is publicly available and used to improve instruction.

As with the data criteria, the majority of states do not meet the Great Teachers and Leaders criteria, 35 total. In fact, only one state - South Carolina - fully meets the criteria. Fulfilling these criteria may prove to be the most challenging because they require gaining approval from local and state teachers unions to use performance data to measure teacher effectiveness, make tenure decisions, and complete teacher evaluations.

Finally, 38 states do not meet the criteria for Turning Around Struggling Schools. In many cases, this is because states either have no charter school law or have arbitrary charter school caps. Only California and Minnesota fully comply with this criterion.

Overall, TNTP only considers Louisiana and Florida highly competitive for the Race to the Top funds. Thirteen additional states are considered competitive and 16 are considered somewhat competitive. The remaining 17 states are ineligible for the funds, according to TNTP.

This analysis paints a somewhat depressing picture of the status of education reform across the country and presents a challenge to those in charge of applying for and distributing the Race to the Top funds. With so few states qualifying under the current priorities, leveraging the funds to really improve educational outcomes could be a challenge.

However, some states have already started to challenge the laws and practices that are preventing them from receiving the funds. Tennessee recently increased its charter school cap and Massachusetts currently has a ballot proposition eliminating such caps. The Idaho state Superintendent of Public Instruction is similarly pushing to lift the state's charter school limits. Both New York and California lawmakers are discussing the removal of the student data "fire-wall" that currently prevents such data from use in teacher assessments.

Ed Money Watch will continue to follow these developments as the Race to the Top application process unfolds.