The news is out, Washington state is one of the winners of the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC). What does it mean, you ask? Washington state, along with California, Minnesota, Ohio, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island will share $500 million dollars to go towards early learning initiatives. That’s a cool $60 million dollars over the next four years for Washington state!

Straight from the Washington state Department of Early Learning, Washington will use the support from the RTT-ELC for several key purposes:

• Expanding the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS), our state’s kindergarten readiness assessment, to include all incoming kindergarteners by school year 2014-15.
• Taking to scale our state’s quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), which helps early learning programs improve the quality of care and education they provide to young children and provides information on quality to families.
• Enhancing the state professional development system by offering awards and incentives to those who work with and care for young children.

As we’ve mentioned many times before, early learning is an extremely important aspect of education. Countless studies continue to show the positive relationship between high quality early learning and closing the achievement gap.

“This incredible opportunity means that the more than 73,000 children who start kindergarten in Washington each year will hit the ground running,” said Department of Early Learning Director Bette Hyde. “We were bold and ambitious in writing our application, and we will be equally ambitious as we use these funds to build the early learning system our children deserve.”

For more information on Washington state’s RTT-ELC application head over to the Washington state Department of Early Learning website.

If you like five months of rain broken up by intermittent fog and drizzle, it’s your time. The Puget Sound condition known as fwing (fall, winter, spring) is upon us. Enjoy.

Have the Shrimp: If you’ve ever been to a party so bad that you wished for a tiny bit of food poisoning just to have a good excuse to jet, you have a sense for how legislators in Washington must feel. Called back for a post-Thanksgiving special session to remedy what is currently a $2 billion problem (this could get worse after the November 17^th revised budget forecast) their options are grim. They must find the money to bring the budget into balance – but they can’t raise taxes without 2/3 majority – thanks initiative 1053! You are the gift that keeps giving – so cuts are inevitable. Cuts means jobs. And in an economy largely built on sales tax, every lost job means fewer dollars of revenue.  So, to get back into balance, cuts will be made, and jobs will be lost, which means the hole won’t stay filled very long. And we’re out of balance. Admittedly, I’m not an economist, but Ray Charles could see that this is a bad set up.

Worse still is that roughly half the $2 billion hole will paved over with education funds. And by some estimates $350 million of that will come from higher education.  The community college system has already declared a state of emergency. Our major employers ought to consider something similar – with thousands of unfilled jobs and at least a few growth industries in town our higher ed system will be hard pressed to help prepare folks for these jobs without significant increases to tuition, major cuts to courses or radical transformation. Not that change wouldn’t do some institutions good. But flying the plane while you’re building it is usually not advised.  Meanwhile, here on terra firma,  yet another study finds that education is the one, true antidote to poverty.

Racing: This week, Washington joined 36 other states in applying for round III of Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge funds. The state is seeking $60  million, mainly to support its quality rating system.  The Feds have said they’ll award between five and ten grants totaling roughly $500 million. Fingers crossed, prayers said, and just in case, there’s this little doll with pins who bears a small resemblance to the man we affectionately call Mr. Duncan. Wondering why all the fuss over early learning? Here’s why.

Charterlicious: Washington’s long, drawn-out and supremely complicated love affair with education innovation came full circle this week when the state’s PTA (Radicals! Liberals! Conservatives! Centrists! (I’ve secretly longed to be called a radical centrist. Instead, I get things you can’t print in this column) voted to support charter schools as one innovation to remedy struggling schools serving “at-risk” kids.  The issue is far from over  for the PTA, but good on ‘em for at least going there.

Most folks agree that one of the most important parts of ensuring high quality charter schools is accountability which begins and ends with the authorizers. They open the schools and should close the bad ones. A new playbook is emerging for effective authorizing – removing some of that mystical quality to the whole process.

In other places, Green Dot and New York’s UFT have come to agreement on a teacher contract that lacks tenure and seniority based layoffs. Green Dot teachers make more and receive performance bonuses. The contract of the future?

Speaking of differentiated pay, the ProComp system being used in Denver seems to be netting some student gains. A new study finds that the bonus system does correlate to higher student scores and, importantly, is driving changes to the systems of recruiting and data gathering. Interesting that teachers enrolled in the program didn’t always set rigorous student achievement goals, but  when they did, they were more likely to achieve them. Not sure what that says about teachers who didn’t set rigorous goals. But what it does say is there needs to be more consistency in how the goals get set among all teachers.

Last Word: The Harkin/Enzi bill to overhaul ESEA (NCLB) should be DOA. Accountability? Gone. Teacher evaluation? Gone. Transparency in student achievement? Gone. What’s that old phrase about painting lipstick on a pig? Never mind. No reauthorization is better than this reauthorization. Don’t take my word for it.

And with that, friends, get your weekend on. And, yes, say it with me, go Pack.

The race is on again! And this time Washington State is serious contender.

A couple of months back, Congress announced new funding for Race to the Top. In total, Congress appropriated $700 million, of which a whopping $500 million is set aside specifically for early learning – the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC). And for those of you who remember Washington’s dismal performance in the previous RTTT, don’t get yourself too down just yet. This is a  totally new competition with all new requirements, priorities, and selection criteria.

On July 1, the US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services released their draft grant details. According to the feds, the final guidelines are anticipated to be released in mid-August, applications will be due in mid-October (a maddeningly short time frame for an application of this magnitude). Winners will be announced by the end of the year and the grants will run through the end of 2015.  The size of the competitive grant amounts depends on the population of low-income children in the state and Washington is eligible for up to $60 million in funding if we win – the range runs from up to$100 million at the high end to a max of $50 million for state’s with small populations of low-income children.

But before we get into the nitty gritty details, let’s talk about what this thing is and what shot we have. RTT-ELC competition is at its core about the systems, coordination, and quality of early learning at the state level. As DEL director Bette Hyde put it in a recent email to stakeholders:

“We know that Race to the Top is not about implementing a laundry list of services, but rather promoting a cohesive, integrated, and organized system for improving quality and creating lasting outcomes for children.”

Or as our friends at the New America Foundation’s Early Ed Watch have written:

“This is not a funding stream to some new, untested program — this is a pot of money designed to prod states into networking,  leveraging and improving the programs they already have”.

We are still waiting for the final grant guidelines but the draft guidelines show two absolute priorities necessary for a state to win. States must use (1) early learning standards and kindergarten readiness assessments and (2) tiered quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) to “promote school readiness”. These are the two major areas to garner points on the application. There is one competitive priority that will also be scored: the inclusion of all early learning programs in the state’s QRIS. and Finally, there are two invitational priorities (areas which are not scored but will reflect favorably on the state): (1) sustaining effectiveness in the early grades and (2) private sector support. In addition to the priorities, the feds want applications need to address a number of requirements within four broad selection criteria:

1. Successful State Systems
2. Promoting Early Learning And Development Outcomes
3. High-Quality, Accountable Programs
4. A Great Early Childhood Workforce

So how does Washington fare at first glance  in relation to the draft  priorities and selection criteria? Pretty darn well.

• We are currently in the process of redesigning our early learning benchmarks (now called guidelines and stay tuned because a request for public input will come soon).
• We recently moved from the pilot stage to implementation with the WaKIDS kindergarten transition process – with the addition of private funds WaKIDS will serve nearly 25% of kids statewide in the coming school year.
• And while still in its infancy, our state QRIS framework is moving beyond pilot stage this year.
• We have a statewide Early Learning Plan.
• The Professional Development Consortium issued its recommendations for our early learning workforce.
• We adopted Core Competencies for both Early Learning Professionals and Child and Youth Development Professionals.
• The Early Learning Advisory Council has some new representation, is revising its role, and was awarded $1.7 million from the Federal State Advisory Council grant
• We have a very active and involved public-private partnership Thrive by Five Washington who along with DEL and OSPI have formed a joint early learning partnership.
• And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the early learning work happening all throughout Washington State at the local and state levels.

Clearly, the last two years have been busy ones for early learning planning and piloting in Washington State and now is the time for the funds to put all the thoughtful and comprehensive plans into action.

The Feds requested that states make known their intentions to apply for the grant by the beginning of this week and Washington was one of 36 states (and DC) that threw our hat in the ring. Interestingly, of the four states eligible for the top end of the grant awards only one signaled their interest by the deadline (NY). That does not mean that the other three will not apply but it makes one wonder if there might be more money to go around.

LEV is watching the developments closely and we are serving on the state application advisory team. Watch out for more news and action alerts from us as the grant is formally released, the application is written, and the decisions are announced. This is a huge opportunity for early learning in Washington State and we will need each and every one of you to support writing the best, most winningest application.

President Obama tied our nation’s future to our ability to “out-educate and out-innovate” the rest of the world in his State of the Union address last night. Obama dedicated roughly a third of his remarks to education, citing a statistic we often use–that half of all new jobs in the next decade will require training beyond a high school education–to raise the level of urgency.

Obama went even one step further. He called this time in history “our generation’s Sputnik moment.” He challenged our nation to raise the level of investments in research and development similar to the effort that helped our nation win the race to the moon. But instead of the moon, Obama hoped these investments would launch a new wave of 21st century jobs for Americans.

To fill these jobs, Obama said we have to “win the race to educate our kids.” He touted his Race to the Top challenge last year as “the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation.” Although Washington State did not win a Race to the Top grant, the competition spurred us to revamp our principal and teacher evaluation criteria and develop new strategies to turnaround persistently low-achieving schools.

Obama did not forget to shine the spotlight on teachers. Here’s what he had to say:

Let’s also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child’s success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as “nation builders.” Here in America, it’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect. We want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones. And over the next 10 years, with so many baby boomers retiring from our classrooms, we want to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science and technology and engineering and math.

In fact, to every young person listening tonight who’s contemplating their career choice: If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation; if you want to make a difference in the life of a child — become a teacher. Your country needs you.

In the latter half of his State of the Union speech, Obama talked about other issues such as health care, government efficiency and cutting our national debt. As we work to close a $4.6 billion budget shortfall in Washington State, Obama’s advice to Congressional lawmakers should ring true here:

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you feel the impact.

For more on the State of the Union, read Education Week’s take or view the full transcript of the speech.

As we continue to read through the pages (and pages) of reviewer comments on Washington’s Race to the Top (R2T), phase 2 application, here’s a look at each state’s scores as percent of points possible, and rank. Ranks in the top 10 in each category and overall are shaded gray, and there’s a trend among R2T phase 2 winners. Washington’s highest rank was 13th, which was in data systems category. Washington scored below average in every other category (only by a few points in the turning around low-performing schools category).

One pattern I’m noticing in the reviewers’ comments is while Washington clearly identified goals, there were not always clear plans on how to reach them.

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.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan named 10 winners in the second round of the Race to the Top competition today. The round two winners are the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island. About $3.4 billion in federal funding will be divided among these states to be used to innovate and reform their public schools.

Washington State submitted an application to win up to $250 million from the Race to the Top fund in June, but was not selected as a finalist last month. Out of 36 applicants in round two, Washington ranked 32 with a score of 290.6 out of 500.

This week, the U.S. Department of Education selected 18 states and the District of Columbia as finalists in round two of Race to the Top. These states will compete for $3.4 billion in federal funding to innovate and reform their public schools. The winners are expected to be announced in September.

The Partnership for Learning has highlighted some of the bold reforms adopted by the leading front-runners in the remaining group of 19 finalists below.

What lessons should we learn about our efforts to win a Race to the Top grant? Peter Callaghan from the Tacoma News Tribune pinpoints some of them in his column today. Here’s an excerpt below.

Wouldn’t it be better to pass a great bill than a good bill? Probably. But Gregoire had developed a strategy that was more politics than substance. Even though she admitted she would have preferred to get more, she decided that having “buy-in” from the teachers union was more important.

Beginning last summer she began meetings with union officials, state schools chief Randy Dorn, state education board chairwoman Mary Jean Ryan and representatives from the principals’ association.

When unveiled in January, it was termed by Gregoire a delicate balance that would unravel if amended. Rather than assert their constitutional role, legislative leaders went along.

But those who hadn’t been included in the deal tried to toughen the bill and take advantage of the momentum spurred by Race to the Top. School superintendents and education advocacy groups including the League of Education Voters, Stand For Children, the PTA and the Washington Business Roundtable thought it was fine to put more rigor in teacher and principal evaluations as the bill proposed, but there also needed to be a loss of tenure for veteran teachers who are failing.

They also thought student performance as measured by assessments needed to be a mandatory part of those evaluations. And they thought evaluations should be created by the state, not by 295 districts after 295 union bargaining sessions.

Dorn, despite standing with Gregoire at that January unveiling, said those flaws and the lack of charter school legislation would make it tough to win the federal competition.

Read the entire column here.

Having sat out round one, Washington’s round two application for Race to the Top funds fell short of making it as a finalist. Disappointing? Yes. Surprising? Not so much.

While we’ve pressed hard for real change in our system statewide, Washington started well behind the most competitive states, and in a strategy that sadly mirrors our approach to catching up kids who are behind, we offered less. Last legislative session we did remove the barriers to turning around low-performing schools that prohibited state intervention, we expanded the teacher and principal evaluation system from bimodal to a four tiered system and we expanded the path for alternative certification – which would allow Teach for America trained teachers to enter our education workforce.

As good and necessary as those changes are, they can’t erase our state’s less-than-stellar student performance, especially in critical content areas like math and science.

Currently, kids in Washington have about as much chance of going to college as I do of becoming a size six by this weekend. We rank 47th out of the 50 states. We are one of the only states with a growing achievement gap (the disparity between the performance of certain groups of students, usually based on race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status). If you were looking at our math and science scores without knowing anything about our state’s economy, it would astonish you that we are home to Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon (to name a few).

I know, I know. Naysayer. Debbie Downer. Here’s a bone: White kids are average. No, that’s not a band name. It’s a fact.

Without seeing the scores, it’s hard to know where we fell short (except for the aforementioned student achievement attributes). But on the Race’s 500 point scale, a state which prohibits charter schools really starts with 460, as you give away the 40 points charters represent. We also don’t tie student achievement to teacher evaluation, don’t have a strong history of turning around under-performing schools, have a growing achievement gap and have not shown a commitment to stable funding of our education system. (Sadly, due to a lack of transparency, we can’t really say how our money has affected student achievement, which leaves the whole system open to detractors who promote the “money doesn’t matter” philosophy). Again, until we see the scoring, we don’t know exactly where we came up short, but all of the finalists had at least 400 points.

What will we learn? How will we use it? Good questions. To be continued.

Listen to Ross Reynold’s interview with Chris Korsmo on KUOW’s The Conversation about Race to the Top.

Parents and education advocates were disappointed to learn today that Washington State was not selected as a finalist in the second round of Race to the Top. In June, the state submitted an application to win up to $250 million from President Obama’s $4.3 billion federal Race to the Top fund for education reform and innovation.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the finalists today at a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The finalists are Arizona, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.

Next, the second round finalists will present their plans in August, with the winners expected to be announced in September. Delaware and Tennessee were the only states to win federal grants in the first round of the Race to the Top competition.

LEV’s Chris Korsmo and Lisa Macfarlane reacted to the news today:

“Our kids need and deserve a world class education to be competitive in today’s global marketplace,” said Chris Korsmo, executive director of the League of Education Voters. “Right now, we’re coming up short. We need a robust plan to ensure our kids receive the rigor and support they need to get into and through college, and to help catch up the students who are behind.”

“Despite the disappointing news, this Race to the Top competition has leveraged more change than we would have thought possible,” said Lisa Macfarlane, co-founder of the League of Education Voters. “We passed important education reforms this year, but that’s just the first step. Now, our state’s leaders must work together with the districts and unions to achieve real changes that will transform our schools and help all of our students succeed.”

Washington competed against 35 states and the District of Columbia. Facing an uphill battle, state lawmakers approved legislation (Senate Bill 6696) this year to improve Washington’s ability to win. The changes include:

• Authority to intervene in our lowest performing schools;
• A new teacher and principal evaluation system;
• Additional pathways for professionals to become teachers; and
• Extending teacher tenure from two years to three.

Gov. Chris Gregoire, Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn, and State Board of Education Chair Jeff Vincent pledged to continue the work to reform Washington’s education system in a joint news release.

In September, education advocates and state leaders will find out how our state’s application was scored when the U.S. Department of Education releases final results for the second round of Race to the Top.

Will Washington make the cut? That’s the question we’re all wondering for the second round of Race to the Top. Washington State is competing to win $250 million in federal grants to reform and innovate our public schools.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is expected to announce the finalists in round two at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. during a speech beginning at 1 PM.

Bloggers for Education Week are predicting 20 states will be chosen as finalists, with 10 to 15 winners eventually named. Unfortunately, they don’t think Washington State will make the cut.

Check back with the LEV blog on Tuesday for the results from the announcement.

An impressive number of school districts — 251 — have signed onto the state’s Race to the Top application, representing a whopping 96% of our students. And stragglers are still crossing the finish line!

Does high participation even matter? Absolutely. Getting broad and deep buy in on our state’s new education reform plan from the tiny rural school districts to large urban ones is critically important because that is where the work gets done. It also helps our Race to the Top application be more competitive. The most important “state success factor” is having a well articulated reform agenda that is supported by school districts.

Why bother? We don’t really have a chance of winning, do we? It’s true that the chattering class in Washington, DC is not betting on our prospects as a winner. And, we haven’t heard that the feds are giving out any “most improved” awards (which would have Washington written all over them). But, you don’t tell your kid not to enter a race, just because you don’t think she will win. The truth is that this competition has leveraged more change than we would have thought possible. Look at how much we accomplished in this last legislative session. We finally gave the state authority to intervene in our lowest performing schools, we are going to do serious work on a new teacher and principal evaluation system, we opened up some alternative certification doors, and we extended teacher tenure from two years to three.

What’s next? State leaders have until June 1st to pull all the pieces together of what will be a very lengthy Race to the Top application. At this point, a small group of people are doing a hideous amount of work that will soon be available to the whole wide world. We’ll find out in August whether we are a finalist. Either way, we have a come a long way.

Washington’s Race to the Top (R2T) application team — led by the governor’s office, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education — is drafting a reform plan to include in our R2T application (and drive education reform in WA, generally). And they want to hear from you! We’ve already submitted our two cents (OK, more like $1.17), and you should add your voice to the chorus.

Here’s our take — first, the good:

• The goals of the plan are worthy — of both our time and effort.
• The outcome measures are valid, and if the related data where made available data nerds like me would do a happy dance.

Next, areas for improvement:

• It’s hard to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you are — the absence of baseline data will make it hard to benchmark progress.
• The goals, while worthy, need dates next to them. A goal isn’t worth much without a deadline attached.
• The identified strategies are too vague. Ex. “Deliver highly effective, differentiated and personalized instruction supported by skilled teachers and building-level leadership.” How will WA do this? What specific steps are necessary?
• The outcome measures are more progress indicators than final outcome goals. We should determine what we are actually aiming for and quantify it.
• The plan does not differentiate between state and local initiatives. Some reforms will need to occur at the state level while others will be better suited to district implementation.

Now it’s your turn. The latest draft of the reform plan is available here, you can provide your feedback here.

The Race to the Top (R2T) participation agreement and appeal letter sent to districts is now public. The appeal comes from Washington’s team, lead by Gov. Chris Gregoire, Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn and State Board of Education Chair Jeff Vincent. Together, they are asking all 295 school districts to sign participation agreements by May 17th.

Many parts of the participation agreements are required of any districts signing on (i.e. phase-in of common core standards, implement new four-tier teacher and principal evaluation systems). Other pieces are optional and grouped into “Innovation Clusters.” So-called clusters will focus on one of four areas: Teacher & Leader Development and Effectiveness; Persistently Lowest-Achieving Schools; Improving College and Career Readiness and Closing the Achievement Gap; and Improving Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Performance.

The R2T team is presuming a $250 million award at most, with 50 percent going directly to districts (per the grant requirements). The team promises all districts will receive at least $22/FTE student per year; and small districts will receive at least $50/FTE student per year (or $4,000 total, whichever is less). To give districts an idea of the funding they can expect, the last four pages include estimated per-student funding, total annual funding and four-year funding for each district. Seattle, the state’s largest district, is estimated to receive about $2.4 million per year, or $9.5 million over the four-year grant. Tacoma could expect $1.8 million per year, and $7.3 million over the four years. On the other end, tiny Benge could expect $350 per year, and $1,400 over the four years.

What will be interesting to see is which districts are willing to sign on in hopes of fairly significant funding, and which may pass because they don’t see it as fiscally appealing enough (or opt out for other reasons). Of course even more worth watching will be which districts vy for one of the Innovation Clusters.

Stay tuned.

Unless you completely ignore education news, you know Delaware and Tennessee are the winners of the first round of Race to the Top (R2T) grants. The national blogs (see here and here) are aflutter dissecting the winners and losers, trying to figure out what really separates the two. I’m not one to duplicate, however, it is worth looking at how Washington State might fare when we apply in round 2. My initial reaction, “it’s going to be tough.” A few things that stick out:

1) Delaware and Tennessee both have 100 percent district participation, and nearly universal union support. While Washington can certainly get there, we have a few more people to get on board. Delaware is considerably smaller than Washington, and it’s student population is no exception (126,801 compared to Washington’s 1,040,750). Tennessee is closer in size to Washington, with an enrollment of 930,525, although it has about half as many districts.

2) Delaware and Tennessee are members of various assessment consortia. While Washington is part of the Achieve consortium, we are not widely using its assessments. In contrast, Delaware and Tennessee are each members of four consortia.

3) Both Delaware (466) and Tennessee (1,300 annually) have produced more teachers – proportionate to size – through alternate pathways than Washington (650). This will probably cost us a few points.

4) Delaware and Tennessee have more developed evaluation systems. Even with the passage of SB 6696, Washington still has a lot of work to do to create a meaningful evaluation system for teachers and principals. The Secretary Duncan has indicated he would prefer R2T grants fund established efforts before being used to kick start pilots.

Dare I ask, what stands out to you all?

Parents, educators and students have a lot to celebrate this morning. On the final day of the 2010 legislative session, lawmakers reached agreements on key education bills.

Thank you to legislators and especially parents and education advocates who worked so hard on behalf of kids this legislative session.

Basic education funding bill

Lawmakers took the next step in implementing last year’s historic education reform bill (House Bill 2261) by approving the Quality Education Council’s recommendations in House Bill 2776. The legislation:

• Establishes a new and more transparent school funding formula;
• Lowers class sizes in kindergarten through third grade and increases funding to cover maintenance and operations costs; and
• Revises how the state pays for pupil transportation costs.

Thank you to Rep. Pat Sullivan, Rep. Marcie Maxwell and Rep. Skip Priest for your hard work to begin fully funding basic education.

Race to the Top reforms

Washington is in a better position to win a $250 million federal Race to the Top grant thanks to the passage of Senate Bill 6696. The bill will also improve Washington’s public schools by:

• Adopting the State Board of Education’s guidelines on turning around consistently low-performing schools;
• Revising teacher evaluations and creating new principal evaluation criteria; and
• Expanding teacher preparation and recruitment pathways.

Thank you to Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, Sen. Eric Oemig and Sen. Curtis King for your work on this bill.

Early childhood education

Our state’s youngest learners received tremendous support from Olympia in House Bill 2731 and Senate Bill 6759. The bills reaffirm the state’s commitment to ensuring kids start kindergarten ready to succeed. The bills:

• Expand pre-school programs for three- and four-year olds across the state;
• Protect funding for early learning by making it a new state entitlement program; and
• Consider the establishment of a program of early learning in basic education.

Thank you to Rep. Roger Goodman, Sen. Claudia Kauffman and Rep. Ruth Kagi for being champions for kids.

The State House has passed legislation to help Washington win a federal Race to the Top grant and begin fully funding basic education (E2SSB 6696). The bill now goes to the state Senate for concurrence.

Now, parents and educators need to contact their state senators to urge them to support Senate Bill 6696 as it passed in the House. This plan will begin fully funding basic education as they promised in House Bill 2261 and help Washington win a $250 million Race to the Top grant.

Here’s why it’s urgent you contact your state senator. Currently, the Senate is making:

• No commitment to begin fully funding basic education as they promised in last year’s House Bill 2261. Yesterday evening, they passed legislation that ignores HB 2261 by rejecting key recommendations of the Quality Education Council.
• No commitment of state dollars to make real the required education reforms necessary to help Washington win a Race to the Top grant.

Tell your state senator to support Senate Bill 6696 as it passed in the House. This bill adopts Race to the Top reforms and keeps our commitment to begin fully funding basic education.

From the U.S. Department of Education’s website, the 16 finalists for phase 1 of Race to the Top were announced this morning. Some may surprise, others may not (Education Week reporters made predictions using a  bracket) — Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Ohio were considered early front-runners.

The phase 1 finalists are:

•Colorado
•Delaware
•District of Columbia
•Florida
•Georgia
•Illinois
•Kentucky
•Louisiana
•Massachusetts
•New York
•North Carolina
•Ohio
•Pennsylvania
•Rhode Island
•South Carolina
•Tennessee

The 16 finalists will go before a panel in mid-March, and “winners” will be announced in April. Phase 2 applications are due in June (Washington will apply then).

You have an opportunity to make a difference for children by supporting strong Race to the Top* legislation that will put an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective leader in every school in Washington State.

Here’s how you can take action:

1) Speak up at your town hall meeting.

Attend your town hall meeting this Saturday, February 20th and urge your lawmakers to support strong legislation to help Washington win a Race to the Top grant.

Pass out 50 copies of this editorial by Renton School District’s superintendent that explains why our schools need a system to ensure every classroom and school is led by an effective educator.

2) Are You(r kids) Represented?

We want to know what you would tell your lawmakers about education at these town hall meetings. Share your thoughts and we’ll post some on our Are You(r kids) Represented? webpage. Your story could inspire others to speak up. Click here to share your story here.

3) Send a message to your lawmakers.

If you can’t attend your town hall meeting, or if one is not scheduled, please urge your lawmakers to support strong legislation to help Washington win a Race to the Top grant that will ensure every classroom and school is led by an effective educator.

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*Lawmakers in Olympia are working to pass Senate Bill 6696, which will improve Washington’s ability to win a federal Race to the Top (R2T) grant of up to $250 million. LEV believes lawmakers should pass a stronger version of the bill that incorporates the goals outlined in this editorial by Renton School District’s superintendent to help our state win a R2T grant.

With key legislative deadlines this week, advocates are closely monitoring the status of several proposals to help Washington win a Race to the Top grant.

Publicola interviewed several education stakeholders, including LEV’s Chris Korsmo, about Washington’s Race to the Top efforts. They asked if the proposals (House Bills 3038, 3035, and 3059 and Senate Bill 6696) to allow the state to intervene in low-performing schools and change the way we evaluate, train and recruit educators, will be enough to qualify for a Race to the Top grant.

In regards to intervention authority, Chris said “the [proposals] for turning around the lowest-performing schools are particularly strong.” The bill (HB 3038), is based off the extensive work of the State Board of Education to develop guidelines for supporting and improving consistently under-performing schools.

Click here to read the full story.

For those out there who think Race to the Top is just a one-off, one-year, unfunded mandate, I invite scrutiny of the following excerpt of last night’s State of the Union Address:

“This year, we have broken through the stalemate on the right and left by launching a national competition to improve our schools….When we renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we will work with Congress to expand these reforms to all fifty states.”

You can watch and read the whole thing here.

Reform is here to stay – not just any reform, but the changes put forward through Race to the Top competition. Rather than stand pat on the status quo and decry difficult change, we need to get busy. If we don’t make the changes necessary to improve student achievement and close the achievement gap – changes we should make anyway – we may find ourselves on the losing end of this race.