9 States Get New Chance at Federal Education Aid (US)
May 26, 2011
Nine states that were also-rans in last year’s Race to the Top school improvement competition will get another chance, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday, though this time $200 million will be up for grabs, compared with $4 billion awarded last year.
An additional $500 million will be devoted to a parallel competition among all states to raise the quality of early learning and child care programs and to increase families’ access to them, federal officials said.
The nine states that were Race to the Top finalists but came up short last year —Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and South Carolina — are eligible to submit new applications this year seeking $10 million to $50 million, depending on population and other factors , the Department of Education said. In last year’s competition, the winners were Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee, with Florida and New York getting $700 million each.
In addition to pumping large amounts of money into the winning states, the Race to the Top has had profound effects on the educational landscape. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey was so furious about missing out by just 5 points in the 500-point scoring system because the state’s application lacked basic information that he fired his education commissioner. The top education officials in Colorado and Louisiana resigned after their states mounted major campaigns last year to garner political support from teachers’ unions, local school boards and other groups but did not win.
Christopher D. Cerf, New Jersey’s acting education commissioner, said on Wednesday that his state “intends to apply” for both the early childhood and the Race to the Top funds.
In Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, called the announcement “good news.”
“We have every intention of pursuing this opportunity to fund excellence in our schools,” he said. “Colorado will build on our previous Race to the Top applications, forge ahead with the reform efforts we already have under way and hopefully secure this federal funding.”
By devoting $500 million to early learning, the administration is returning to a pledge President Obama made in his campaign, when he called for greater investments in lifting the quality of education from birth to kindergarten, and extending families’ access to them.
In 2009, Mr. Obama asked Congress to appropriate $10 billion over 10 years for states that raise standards and learning outcomes in their early childhood programs. Lawmakers declined that request, as well as another early learning budget request that t he administration lodged last year.
On Wednesday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said that expanding access to such programs would “make it easier for working parents to hold down a job” and give them “peace of mind that their children are in a high-quality learning environment while they are at work.”
Winning applications for the early learning money will emphasize states’ commitment to “clearer learning standards,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a joint statement.
Ms. Sebelius, whose department administers the federal Head Start child care program and will co-administer the early learning competition, said that in Kansas, where she was governor from 2003 to 2009, many 5-year-olds showed up unprepared for kindergarten, partly because they lacked “social skills that would allow them to sit in a classroom or listen to a teacher.”
“If a 5-year-old can’t sit still, it’s unlikely they’ll do well in a kindergarten class,” Ms. Sebelius said.
Early learning advocates, who just months ago were grumbling that Congress and the administration had failed to make good on early learning promises, were elated at Wednesday’s news.
Cornelia Grumman, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for early learning initiatives, called the new competition “an unprecedented opportunity to make dramatic progress.”