Kansas not among Race to the Top finalist

Kansas was not among the 15 finalist states, and the District of Columbia, selected by the federal government to receive Race to the Top funds, however USD 480 administrators say the district continues to plan on receiving federal funds for restructuring South Middle School and Liberal High School.

RTF was a program created by the Obama administration to push school districts and states into a competition for $4.35 billion in federal education funding. Kansas ,along with 40 other states and the District of Columbia, applied to receive its piece of the $4.35 billion pie.

In its application for funds, Kansas asked for $166 million of which 50 percent would have gone to Kansas Department of Education to implement 31 projects and the rest would have gone to local school districts, Anne Gilmore, a spokesperson for KSDE said.

"Half of the funds were going toward districts," Gilmore said. "So I'm sure its affecting (USD 480) some way."

Last month, KSDE director of title programs and services Julie Ford told The Southwest Times USD 480 had the potential to receive anywhere from $50,000 to $2 million in federal aid in exchange for developing an aggressive district-wide plan to improve student scores and restructure SMS and LHS.

Those funds are still available, USD 480 director of curriculum and development Lana Evans said.

"At this point, the school improvement grant is a 1003(g) (federal school improvement funds) that is not part of Race to the Top," she said. "It is kind of all tied in but (RTF) was going to be separate money that has to do with other issues. They were going to look more at teacher evaluation, teacher performance and student data which would tie into school improvement. But the 1003(g) is the actual $2 million that they keep saying."

KSDE will resubmit its application for RTF in June for the $166 million. The Wall Street Journal reported many outside education experts predicted the Obama administration would pick fewer states for RTF funds in order to send a message to the states it would only reward those states working hardest for change.

In addition to the District of Columbia, the 15 states are Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee. The winners of RTF will be announced in April.

A phase II of applications for other states is due at the halfway point of this year.

For full story please see Friday's Times

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