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Ohio's Race to the Top application builds on existing initiatives
This article orginally appeared in the April, 2010 issue of Catalyst. Click here to see that issue's table of contents.
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by Rachel Abbey

Ohio is a finalist in the federal Race to the Top competition yet again, vying against 17 other states and the District of Columbia for a chance at one of the lucrative top slots.

Ten to 15 states are expected to win during the second round, splitting nearly $3.4 billion for education initiatives. Only two states won during the first round. But even without a big payout, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the grant competition has already spurred states to change policies related to often-controversial issues, such as teacher evaluation systems and charter schools, to make themselves more viable.

“This has never been about the money,” Duncan said yesterday in a conference call with reporters. “This is about creating the climate for reform.”

Duncan said he thinks states that don’t win will be able to continue the steps they’ve made by reallocating state money and using other sources of federal funding, like the Teacher Incentive Fund or the Investing in Innovation fund. He added that the administration is hoping Congress approves funding for a third year of Race to the Top.

Combined, the finalists are asking for close to $6.2 billion in this round—almost twice as much as the department has to pass out, Duncan says.

“My goal is not to fund every state. My goal is to fund as many very strong applications as we can,” Duncan said.

Ohio wasn’t one of the states that rushed to change laws or policies in recent months. But the state already had a pretty solid plan for reform: Ohio’s application aims mostly to support existing initiatives and speed up the implementation of plans outlined in last year’s House Bill 1, which addressed a wide number of education issues, from how schools are funded to how new teachers are trained.

“There was certainly a framework in place,” says Ohio Department of Education spokesman Scott Blake.

Blake says the state tried to make sure the application aligned with initiatives the state already had in place so that the $400 million it stands to win could be used to accelerate reforms or expand initiatives to new depths. The administration didn’t want to create separate tracks of programs that schools would have to keep tabs on.

For example, the teacher-evaluation system in the application is one the state has been working toward approving, says Deb Tully, director of professional issues for the Ohio Federation of Teachers. Rather than just give administrators more control over staff firings, it would support new and struggling teachers and give them a chance to improve. It’s important that school staffs see that the changes that would be funded by Race to the Top are the same ones the state has been working on, rather than just another change in policy handed down by a new political leader.

“If House Bill 1 and Race to the Top are aligned, that means our goals are pretty much in line, and we’re all working toward the same thing,” Tully says.

The OFT encouraged its local unions to view the application as a way to help fund the reforms they are already working on, she added.

Maybe this approach helped the state increase its district buy-in from round 1 to round 2; only about 40 percent of Ohio’s districts signed onto the first application, which critics say hurt the state. More than half of the state’s districts signed on to participate in the second round. The first-round winners, Delaware and Tennessee, had plans that affected nearly 100 percent of their local districts.

The base of Ohio’s application didn’t change much from round to round, but officials told Catalyst Ohio senior writer Scott Stephens in June that they added a lot of critical details, another weak spot in the first round. Blake says the state defined its goals more clearly and outlined how it would support individual districts and schools in its second-round application.

Individual state’s scores will be kept confidential until the end of the competition, Duncan said in yesterday’s call. All the finalists scored above 400 points on a 500-point scale, and the average application increased by about 26 points.

“That’s huge, huge progress,” he added.

The 19 finalists are 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. State teams will meet with reviewers in D.C. during the week of August 9.