April 05, 2010 08:23 PM UTC

Byzantine "Race to the Top?"

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• by: Colorado Pols

Governor Bill Ritter spoke to the New York Times about the state’s unsuccessful bid for strings-attached federal “Race to the Top” funds–haven’t seen this candid an opinion in local reporting.

Colorado, which had hoped to win $377 million, ended in 14th place. Now Mr. Ritter says the scoring by anonymous judges seemed inscrutable, some Coloradans view the contest as federal intrusion and the governor has not decided whether to reapply for the second round.

“It was like the Olympic Games, and we were an American skater with a Soviet judge from the 1980s,” Mr. Ritter said. [Pols emphasis]

Colorado is not the only state where the initial results of the Obama administration’s signature school improvement initiative, known as Race to the Top, have left a sour taste. Many states are questioning the criteria by which winners were chosen, wondering why there were only two that won and criticizing a last-minute cap on future awards…

A new rule capping award money, which is to be spent over four years, is causing states to waver. California, which requested $1 billion, can now only hope to win $700 million. Louisiana, which asked for $314 million, is now capped at $175 million, as is Colorado…

“That’s a lot of money, and we need it,” said [South Carolina] superintendent of education, Jim Rex. “But spread it over four years, with all the federal expectations that come with it, and you have to ask whether you have the time and capacity to gear up again for the arduous work of filing a new proposal. We’re still weighing that.”

…Governor Ritter said in an interview that Colorado had lost points because the state had been unable to persuade about 40 of its 178 districts to participate in the contest, a factor he said he might not be able to change.

“People judging our application may not have appreciated that in the West there is a great deal of local control,” he said. “Many tiny school districts don’t like federal mandates. So even as I believe that school reform is important for our country, it’s also important that people in Washington understand that one size doesn’t fit all.”