Yesterday the U.S. Department of Education annouced the 10 winners of the second round of Race to the Top (R2T), along with all applicants’ scores. Today the scores breakdown and reviewers comments were released (Washington’s are here and here). We will continue to pour over the pages of information, but here’s some initial takeaways:
- There is a good deal of variance between reviewers. Washington earned overall scores ranging from 251 to 342, earning a final score of 290.6.
- Washington lost the most points in the Great Teachers and Leaders section (79), followed by State Success Factors (51.6) and General (43.2).
Here’s a table of the scoring, including points possible in each section, Washington’s averaged score and the score given by each reviewer.
| Criteria | Points possible | WA avg score | Reviewer 1 | Reviewer 2 | Reviewer 3 | Reviewer 4 | Reviewer 5 |
| State Success Factors | 125 | 73.4 | 90 | 80 | 49 | 92 | 56 |
| Standards & Assessments | 70 | 47.6 | 60 | 42 | 48 | 47 | 41 |
| Data Systems to Support Instruction | 47 | 41.8 | 43 | 39 | 40 | 46 | 41 |
| Great Teachers and Leaders | 138 | 59 | 80 | 59 | 61 | 53 | 42 |
| Turning Around Lowest Achieving Schools | 50 | 42 | 40 | 45 | 41 | 39 | 45 |
| General | 55 | 11.8 | 14 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 11 |
| Emphasis on STEM | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 |
| Total | 500 | 290.6 | 342 | 293 | 265 | 302 | 251 |
LEV, with this and other posts lately, you continue to shill for your benefactors, the Gatea, Broad, Boeing foundations etc.
Why?
Can you please post something that is balanced? Can you offer perspectives other than the “reform” movement’s usual talking points? Who CARES about RTTT? Arne Duncan started his career as an “educator” by being CEO of the Ariel School, the pet project in Chicago of Ariel Investment. They teach K-8 students how to be good little investors, because hey, that worked so well during our recent financial meltdown. He went on to crow about “reform” in Chicago, reform that has, in retrospect, turned out to be not so successful as he claimed. Somehow he gets into the lead position with the Dept of Ed, schmoozing Obama, no doubt, and now he’s selling this snake oil called “reform” that standardizes education, categorizes and stigmatizes how groups of children, disrespects teachers, ignores important social aspects such as poverty and generational lack of education….and now has the audacity to have a “race” for funding, using dollars districts desperatly need to try and entice whole states to federalize themselves (whatever happened to local school district’s autonomy?)
“Race to the Top”? Who loses this race? All the districts that have to conform to unproven and damaging “reform,” and all the children who need money for their schools but won’t get it because they didn’t “win.”
Please, LEV, before you lose your last little iota of credibility, publish some alternative perspectives, look at the variety of research, not just that which advnaces the agendas of your benefactors…You used to be a respected organization that tried to look fairly at education issues in Seattle. You’ve become a mere pawn and lackey for the reformistas.
Please: Be fair. Be neutral. Have your own voice.