Four Years Later, Are Race to the Top States on Track?

Race to the Top (RTT) is a first-of-its kind $4.35 billion competitive grant program designed to spur state-level education innovation to boost student achievement, close achievement gaps, and prepare students for college and careers. Originally authorized in 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, RTT encourages states to develop and implement key reform strategies around four core components: (1) Adopting rigorous college- and career-ready standards and assessments; (2) Recruiting, evaluating, and retaining highly effective teachers and principals; (3) Building data systems that measure student success and inform teaching and learning; and (4) Turning around low-performing schools. In total, 45 states and the District of Columbia applied for funding in three phases. The U.S. Department of Education announced the Phase 1 winners--Delaware and Tennessee--in March 2010. A few months later, the Phase 2 winners--District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island--were announced. Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were awarded Phase 3 grants in December 2011. March 2014 marks four years since the first grants were announced, and in a little over a year, the RTT funding to these initial set of states will end. An examination of the U.S. Department of Education's latest Annual Performance Report, or APR, data around the four core RTT components demonstrates the states' progress. When necessary, the APRs are supplemented with extant data from other sources, such as the Government Accountability Office. Three overarching findings emerged in the review of the data: (1) Many of the lowest-performing schools in RTT states have achieved impressive results in a short period of time; (2) Four RTT states are at or near full implementation of their educator evaluation systems, and all other states are in the process of implementing their systems. Implementing new, more rigorous educator evaluation systems is technical and arduous work; and (3) All RTT states have adopted college- and career-ready standards and are making progress toward implementation of assessments aligned with those standards.