Race to the Top
Background for Working
Groups
September 22, 2009
3/14/2016
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Race to the Top:
Guidance from Joanne Weiss, Program Director, USDOE
• $4.35B competitive fund grant to encourage and
reward states making dramatic education reforms,
especially in the four statutory ‘assurance areas’:
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Standards and assessments that prepare students for success
Data systems to support instruction
Great teachers and leaders
Turning around struggling schools
• We are looking for ambitious strategies and reforms
from states to:
– Drive substantial gains in student achievement
– Improve graduation rates and college success
– Close the achievement gap
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Race to the Top:
Guidance from Joanne Weiss, Program Director, USDOE
• To support states in these efforts, Race to the Top
will focus on:
– Creating conditions for innovation and reform (legal/regulatory)
– Enabling system-wide approaches to continuous improvement
(practice)
• We encourage state leaders to:
– Design a unified state effort around ambitious reforms
– Support districts’ reform efforts: Identify effective practices,
replicate and disseminate those practices, and hold districts
accountable for outcomes
– Repurpose and align ARRA and other funds to have the most
dramatic impact
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OREGON RACE TO THE TOP
PRELIMINARY STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK
* Vision
* Mission
* Background
* Strategic Performance Indicators
* Critical Success Factors and Corresponding Initiatives
* Notes/Observations from Design Team Discussions
* Working groups
* Timeline
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* Background and timeline
* March 2009: US Department of Education announces plans to make $5B+ available for
states to pursue educational reform
May 2009: Oregon Department of Education and Meyer Memorial Trust begin planning
a Race to the Top Design Team. Team members are jointly selected.
July 24, 2009: Race to the Top guidelines and criteria published for review and comment
Summer 2009: The Oregon Race to the Top Design Team holds three meetings to
discuss the state’s application. Design Team creates four Working Groups to address
the four core reforms of RTTT
September-October 2009: Working Groups will meet to develop initial recommendations
Early October 2009: Expected date for revised regulations; applications due within 60
days of publication
October-November 2009: Design Team will finalize recommendations for completion of
the formal application.
December 2009: Phase 1 applications due to USDOE.
* Due to the legal requirement to distribute and spend stimulus dollars quickly, the Race
to the Top application process is compressed. Therefore, the process for soliciting input
and reviewing recommendations has to be streamlined.
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* Race to the Top Design Team
* Vickie Fleming, Superintendent of Redmond School District, Project Manager
Susan Castillo, Superintendent of Public Instruction
Eduardo Angulo, Executive Director, Salem Keizer Coalition for Equity
Julia Brim-Edwards, Director of Government Relations, Nike
Pat Burk, Faculty, Portland State University
Matt Coleman, Director of Secondary Education, Springfield School District
Ed Dennis, Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction
Michael Geisen, Teacher, Crook County Middle School
Joyce Harris, Director, Equity Program, Northwest Regional Education Laboratory
Sue Levin, Meyer Memorial Trust Fellow
Marjorie Lowe, Education Policy Advisor, Office of the Governor
Dena Hellums, parent leader, Stand for Children
Jim Mabbott, Superintendent, Northwest Regional Education Service District
Colleen Mileham, Assistant Superintendent, ODE
Carlos Perez, President, Oregon Association of Latino Administrators
Bill Porter, President, Education First Consulting
Gail Rasmussen, President, Oregon Education Association
Kate Richardson, Economic Recovery Executive Team, Office of the Governor
Doug Stamm, Executive Director, Meyer Memorial Trust
Courtney Vanderstek, Assistant Executive Director, Oregon Education Association
Joann Waller, retired, former president, Oregon Education Association
Duncan Wyse, Executive Director, Oregon Business Council
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* Race to the Top - Selection Criteria
* Four ‘reform areas’ plus an overall view of the state’s education ‘climate’:
1. Adopting internationally benchmarked standards and assessments
that prepare students for success in college and the workplace
2. Recruiting, developing, retaining and rewarding effective teachers and
principals
3. Building data systems that measure student success and inform
teachers and principals how they can improve their practices
4. Turning around the bottom 5% of low-performing schools
* For each of these criteria, there will be a review of Reform Conditions
(what’s been done to date) and Reform Plan (new proposals)
* In addition, the guidelines ask for states to comprehensively address the
four reform areas—the application must “describe how the State and
participating LEAs intend to use Race to the Top and other funds to implement
comprehensive and coherent policies and practices in the four education
reform areas”
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* Race to the Top - Application priorities
* Comprehensive approach to the four education reform areas. (Absolute
priority. Applications that do not meet this standard will not be accepted.)
* Emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).
(Competitive preference priority: potential for additional points awarded.)
* Expansion and Adaptation of Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems.
(Invitational priority: No preference awarded.)
* P-20 Coordination and Vertical Alignment (Invitational priority.)
* School-level Conditions for Reform and Innovation (Invitational priority.)
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USDOE Questions – Race to the Top
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In each of the four reform areas, what legal and policy conditions has
each State created—already—that are conducive to education reform
and innovation?
For each of the four areas, what plans does each State propose
implementing over the next four years that it believes will lead to the
most dramatic improvements in student outcomes? How do these plans
build on and connect to States' existing efforts and assets?
How will States ensure that they—and their LEAs—can execute against
those plans? This is about capacity-building—it's about having the
leadership and the teams, the support plans and the operational
infrastructure that are needed to successfully deliver on proposed
plans.
And the culminating question, what is the impact on student outcomes,
statewide, that these plans will have? In the end, it's all in the service of
increasing student achievement, increasing high school graduation
rates, narrowing the achievement gaps, and preparing our students for
success in college and the workforce.
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--Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09
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•
I urge everyone—when we get to the application stage—to color
outside the lines, to think differently. Don't assume there's something
we want to hear and parrot that back to us; and don't assume that any
counterproductive constraints under which you operate are immutable.
--Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09
--Joanne Weiss, 9/10/09
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Criteria
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Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE
• Standards and Assessments “Themes”
– Adopting common standards that prepare students for college and
careers and are internationally benchmarked
– Developing common assessments that measure what students
know and can do, as defined by the standards (covered by the
Standards & Assessment carve-out)
– Supporting districts in implementing the new standards and
assessments by creating and disseminating curricular frameworks,
lesson materials, formative and interim assessments, professional
development, etc
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Criteria
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Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE
• Data Systems to Support Instruction “Themes”
– Ensuring that the data in statewide systems is accessible and used
to inform and engage stakeholders
– Supporting districts in adopting instructional improvement systems
so they can implement cycles of data-driven continuous
instructional improvement in classrooms, schools, and districts
– Improving knowledge about the effectiveness of instructional
materials, strategies, and approaches by opening data access to
researchers and practitioners
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Criteria
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Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE
Turning Around Struggling Schools “Themes”
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•
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Turning around (at least) the bottom 5% of the school in improvement,
corrective action or restructuring
Ensuring conditions for innovation in turnaround schools
– Autonomies– ability to select staff, organize/expand learning time,
control spending
Providing districts with ‘school turnaround’ partners and providing
parents with public school choices:
– Charter schools – strong charter accountability coupled with
favorable charter laws regarding caps, funding and facilities
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Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, comments
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There are about 5000 chronically underperforming schools. About half
are in big cities, maybe a third are in rural areas and the rest in suburbs
and medium-sized towns. This is a national problem.
States and districts must be ready to institute far reaching reforms,
replace school staff and change the school culture fundamentally. We
cannot continue to tinker in schools where students fall further and
further behind year after year
When superintendents have the authority to tackle the lowest
performing schools by replacing staff and shaking up the school
culture, they will have the ability for the first time to close or remake the
dropout factories that are at the root of our nation’s dropout problem.
This only works with the full support of the community– the faith-based,
the political, the social service agencies, the police, the boys and girls
club. A principal can’t do this alone.
America needs high-energy, hero principals to take over these
struggling schools…and they will need great teachers who are willing to
do the toughest work in public education.
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Criteria
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Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE
Great Teachers And Leaders “Themes”
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Knowing which teachers and principals are effective, as judged in large
part by multiple measures of student achievement and growth
Ensuring that local decision-makers are able to use this ‘effectiveness’
information to inform key decisions such as evaluation, compensation,
tenure, promotion and dismissal
Rewarding excellence and attracting effective talent to the schools and
subject areas where it’s needed most
Shining a light on which credentialing/preparation programs best
prepare teachers and principals for success
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Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, comments
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“A recent report from the New Teacher Project found that almost all
teachers are rated the same. Who in their right mind really believes that?
We need to work together to change this.”
“Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure
decisions. That would never make sense. But to remove student
achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.”
“Too often, teachers don’t have good data to inform instruction and help
raise student achievement.”
“When principals are able to identify their most effective and their least
effective teachers, it makes it easier to place teachers where they are
needed most and provide struggling teachers with the help and assistance
they need.”
“[In Chicago] with the help of teachers, we designed a pilot performance
compensation system…based on classroom observation, whole school
performance and individual classroom performance, measured in part by
growth in student learning. The rewards and incentives went to every adult
in the school—including custodians and cafeteria workers—not just the
individual teachers.”
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Four Reform Areas
• In each of the four reform areas, what legal and policy conditions has
each State created—already—that are conducive to education reform
and innovation?
• For each of the four areas, what plans does each State propose
implementing over the next four years that it believes will lead to the
most dramatic improvements in student outcomes? How do these
plans build on and connect to States' existing efforts and assets?
• How will States ensure that they—and their LEAs—can execute against
those plans? This is about capacity-building—it's about having the
leadership and the teams, the support plans and the operational
infrastructure that are needed to successfully deliver on proposed
plans.
• And the culminating question, what is the impact on student outcomes,
statewide, that these plans will have? In the end, it's all in the service
of increasing student achievement, increasing high school graduation
rates, narrowing the achievement gaps, and preparing our students for
success in college and the workforce.
7/31/09
--Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09
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•
I urge everyone—when we get to the application stage—to color
outside the lines, to think differently. Don't assume there's something
we want to hear and parrot that back to us; and don't assume that any
counterproductive constraints under which you operate are immutable.
--Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09
--Joanne Weiss, 9/10/09
7/31/09
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