UPDATE: Bret Schundler, fired from his post of education commissioner by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, has admitted that the fatal error in his state's Race to the Top application was his and his alone.  Continue Reading...

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is fuming at the federal government's unwillingness to let his administration address a clerical error in their 1,000 page application that likely cost his state $400 million in Race to the Top funding. A simple clerical mistake on the application switched 2008-09 budget numbers for 2010-11. Two weeks prior to the final decision, New Jersey officials met with federal officials and corrected the data in person, but apparently the verbal correction was not accepted. Gov. Christie is taking full responsibility and refuses to even release the name of the mid-level staffer who made the error.  Continue Reading...

Finalists in the second round of the Race to the Top (RTTT) program are preparing to present their cases to Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the RTTT peer reviewers who will adjust each state’s scores based on their presentations. Some speculate that the presentations during the first weeks of August won’t substantially alter the scores, because scores changed little after interviews in RTTT’s first round.  Continue Reading...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced today the eighteen states plus D.C. who have a chance to compete for the final round of the Race to the Top funding program. $3.4 billion is still up for grabs after Delaware and Tennessee received $600 million in round one.  Continue Reading...

Traditional education schools are under attack, reports The New York Times. Alternative paths to becoming a teacher, like Teach for America and the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (the latter was not mentioned in the article), are becoming more popular, threatening the longtime monopoly the education schools have enjoyed.  Continue Reading...

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) has released a thorough, PowerPoint-style analysis of the first round of Race to the Top, complete with recommendations for the Department of Education. The report is detailed and few of our readers will have the time to read it all, but here are some interesting highlights:  Continue Reading...

The Obama administration announced that Delaware and Tennessee scored the highest on their Race to the Top proposals and will be awarded $100 million and $500 million, respectively. Both applications rely heavily on tracking student performance and linking it to teacher evaluation and even bonus pay.  Continue Reading...

According to an editorial in The Star-Ledger, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) has ensured that New Jersey will receive none of the $4 billion dollars available to states in the Race to the Top program. The NJEA "bristled" at charter school expansion and remains fundamentally opposed to merit pay, two reforms President Obama has emphasized in the program.  Continue Reading...

Today the Department of Education announced the states that will advance as finalists for phase 1 of the Race to the Top competition. Race to the Top is a $4.35 billion effort to reward reforms, such as   Continue Reading...

West Virginia State Sen. Erik Wells, a Democrat representing Kanawha, killed his own charter schools bill, criticizing the unions who opposed the legislation. "Who's standing up for students of this state?" Wells asked during his speech on the senate floor, "It's not AFT, it's not WVEA." Sen. Wells accused the unions of attacking his family because he sends his daughter to private school. Although Sen. Wells was elected in 2006 with union support, one teacher union has endorsed Wells' primary opponent.  Continue Reading...