On Tuesday when the second round of the federal government’s Race to the Top competition for education funds was released, Montana was not one of the 19 finalists listed.
“We called our Race to the Top application the Montana Plan for a reason, and although we did not receive this federal grant, our education reform efforts will continue,” Denise Juneau, Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction, said in a press release. “We worked hard with the education community, the Governor’s Office, and the Board of Education to put together a plan that fits our frontier state status, respects our constitutional guarantee of local control, and values the collective bargaining practices in our schools. The difficulty may be that the ideas the U.S. Department of Education have for educational reform may work for urban areas, but are not necessarily the best fit for Montana."
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Finalists include Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
Since one of the criteria appears to be having the capacity to implement the reforms the Race to the Top program proposes, some feel the competition isn’t rural state friendly.
“The fact that 84 percent of schools signed on representing 94 percent of Montana students shows the widespread support for creating a plan that was flexible and innovative, but did not subscribe to every federal mandate – because many of those concepts simply will not work in a frontier state like Montana,” Juneau said.
Race to the Top is a federal investment in education reform, with $4.35 billion available to support states in their comprehensive reforms. The U.S. Department of Education is reserving $350 million for a separate competition to support consortia of states that are creating the next generation of assessments that will support reform.
In the first round of competition supporting state-based reforms, Delaware and Tennessee won grants based on their comprehensive plans to reform their schools and the statewide support for those plans. Almost $3.4 billion remains to award grants to winners in the second round. The finalists that were announced Tuesday will travel to Washington to present their plans to the peer reviewers who scored their applications. After the state’s presentations and an extended question-and-answer period, the peer reviewers will finalize their scores and comments.
Montana has recently received an $11.5 million Title I School Improvement Grant to turn around the state’s most struggling schools.
Schools in Frazer, Lame Deer, Pryor, and Lodge Grass will receive the U.S. Department of Education grants; Hays Lodge Pole School District is eligible and will apply this summer, which could add a fifth school.
“So, we’re celebrating that,” Jessica Rhodes, spokesperson for the Montana Office of Public Instruction, said.
editor@sidneyherald.com
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