Today, the Department of Education announced that New York State is among the 10 winners receiving a Race to the Top grant totaling nearly $700 million in federal education funding to the state, made available through funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.   Of the second round winners, New York scored second only to Massachusetts.

“One of the best investments that we can make in our community’s development is in the classroom with our future leaders,” said Congressman Higgins.  “By raising the bar to education standards, we are taking monumental steps to true education reform.  With these unprecedented levels of federal education funds, we are making significant progress to make those goals a reality for New York.”

New York State will receive over $696 million to help advance the Regents reform agenda through 27 projects over four grant years. Half of the funds will go towards participating local education agencies to support implementation of the program, and the other half will go towards improving educators and directly supporting new curriculum models, standards, assessments, teacher and principal preparation and professional development, and the statewide student data system.

New York State’s Race to the Top application incorporates reforms made possible by state legislation enacted earlier this year. These include:

• Establishing a new teacher and principal evaluation system that makes student achievement data a substantial component of how educators are assessed and supported;
• Raising New York’s charter school cap from 200 to 460 and enhancing charter school accountability and transparency;  
• Enabling school districts to enter into  contracts with Educational Partnership Organizations (the term for non-profit Education Management Organizations in New York State) for the management of their persistently lowest-achieving schools and schools under registration review; 
• Appropriating $20.4 million in capital funds to the State Education Department to implement its longitudinal data system.

Through funding from the Recovery Act, the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund is an unprecedented federal investment in reform, with $4 billion for statewide reform grants and $350 million to support states working together to improve the quality of their assessments. The Race to the Top state competition is designed to reward states that are leading the way in comprehensive, coherent, statewide education reform across four key areas: 

1. Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace;
2. Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals how to improve instruction; 
3. Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and 
4. Turning around their lowest-performing schools. 

Including both Phase 1 and Phase 2 winners, 11 states and the District of Columbia have now been awarded money to invest in groundbreaking education reforms that will directly impact 13.6 million students and 980,000 teachers in 25,000 schools across the country.