Holliday's RTTT Analysis

Yesterday, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday completed an initial analysis of the scoring in the Race to the Top competition.

The spreadsheet shows the points per finalist in each of the Race to the Top (RTTT) categories.

Holliday's analysis is as follows:

State Success Factors – Kentucky’s strategy of 100 percent participation did pay off, as shown by our 2nd-place ranking behind Delaware. We are 5.8 points behind Delaware, so we should review Delaware's application and presentation to see if we can pick up these points. Other states that did not have full state participation were as much as 26.2 points behind Delaware and more than 20 points behind Kentucky.

Standards and Assessments – Ohio was tops with 69.4 points, and we had 68.4 points (tied for 3rd place with Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee). If we update our application with our April 12 Unbridled Learning Summit information and deployment plans, then we can max out this assurance area.

Data Systems – We rank 3rd, behind Delaware. The gap is only 3.6 points, and we can work on this in same manner as the state success factor.

Great Teachers and Leaders – We rank 10th in this assurance area and could improve our performance by at least 10 points by clearly addressing the teacher evaluation component. We will need support from teacher organizations to address this gap.

Turnaround – We are tied for 7th (with Louisiana and North Carolina) in this assurance area, but only have a five-point gap from the top scorer (Washington, D.C.). We need to review D.C., Tennessee and Georgia for possible ways to address this gap.

General – As expected, we rank last. Only through our strong performance in the other areas were we able to end up in the finals and rank as high as 9th overall. This area has our largest gap (32 points), and it is totally due to the lack of charter schools. Without support from the General Assembly to pass charter legislation, there is no need to address this area. The only way for the General Assembly to pass charter legislation would be through a special session, and I am unsure that there is support for a special session.

With the maximum focus on the teacher and leader area and slight improvements in the other areas, I believe we can continue to be very competitive in Round 2. We expect between 8-13 states to receive funding in the final round, and Kentucky must revise its application to meet the funding criteria range of $60 million to $175 million.

SOURCE: KDE press release