Race to the Top Proposal Has Support of All Gubernatorial Candidates

Governor Phil Bredesen says he’s confident the programs proposed in the state’s Race to the Top application will be supported by his successor, if the state wins the massive federal education grant.

The federal government is expected to announce winners of the competitive grant program in April. Tennessee’s next governor will be elected in November,

Bredesen says the state was careful to address the fact that the administration making the proposal would, for the most part, not be the one to carry it out.

 

“One of the things we put in our application for Race to the Top was a letter supporting the strategies, signed by every one of the candidates for governor. It’s all not gonna change because somebody else is elected.”

 

The state also secured the signatures from every district superintendent and school board president, plus the leaders of 93-percent of the local teacher’s unions.

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The state’s Race to the Top proposal asks for just over 500-million dollars to help struggling schools, make use of student test data, change teacher training and compensation, and promote math and science education.

That’s more than 15-million dollars higher than many had anticipated the state to request. It’s twice the amount the federal government suggested for states of this size. The US Department of Education was careful to note that the suggestions were based solely on the number of children in each state, and that the actual awarded amounts could be larger, if a state’s proposals were compelling enough.

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The state is requesting $108.8 million for efforts to improve 190 struggling schools. Thirteen of those would be shifted into a state-run “achievement school district,” and possibly converted to charter schools.

$ 62.2 million dollars would go to a variety of teacher training initiatives and pay for the transition into new ways of paying teachers.

$54.5 million would be set aside for helping schools use the state’s student existing longitudinal data system

$22.5 million would be invested in programs focused on what’s called STEM: science, technology, engineering and math. This would include partnerships with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the science and technology firm Battelle.

$2.9 million would go to administrative costs, including the creation of a new position in the Tennessee Department of Education to oversee Race to the Top programs.

The remainder (about $250 million) would be used to fill a requirement that states send half of their Race to the Top money to local districts for use in Title I programs.