NJSBA: Move Forward with Race to the Top Reforms

New Jersey lost its bid for some $400 million in funding in Race to the Top grants designed to encourage educational reform, federal officials announced Tuesday.

New Jersey was one of 19 applicants that were finalists for $3.4 billion in the second round of Race to the Top grants. But only nine states and the District of Columbia received funding in the grant competition.

Even without the federal funds, the strategies included in New Jersey’s grant application should go forward, according to a statement from Marie S. Bilik, NJSBA executive director. “The innovative reforms included in our state’s Race to the Top application can pay dividends in the classroom, regardless of today’s decision by the federal government,” she said.

In May, NJSBA was one of the first statewide education organizations to formally endorse New Jersey’s grant application. At the time, Bilik pointed to the proposal’s “innovative strategies” that would “open doors to educational opportunity for disadvantaged students, advance student achievement by providing additional teacher compensation based on classroom performance, build an accurate and useful database of student achievement, and give local school officials the ability to retain the best teachers making needed changes in the state’s tenure and seniority system.”

Many local school officials were hopeful the federal government would award the grants, especially in light of the loss of more than a billion dollars in education funding. Since February, school districts have experienced two state funding cuts totaling $1.2 billion. Those cuts were followed by additional reductions that municipal officials made to local tax levies after a majority of proposed school budgets were defeated by voters in the Annual School Election in April.

Early Round In the first round of Race to the Top grants earlier this year, 40 states applied for funding, but only Delaware and Tennessee received $600 million in grants. By giving the first round of grants to only two states, the U.S. Department of Education sent a message that it emphasized applications that acquired the buy-in from local stakeholders, including teacher unions. But in New Jersey, union leaders in more than 350 participating school districts refused to sign on to the program because the federal grants encourage states to adopt merit pay – which labor unions routinely oppose.

NJSBA had also written a letter of support for the state’s grant application.

The Race to the Top grants require states to implement educational reforms to help low-performing schools, raise standards, ensure effective teachers, and use data to track student performance.

Gov. Chris Christie said state education officials expect to move ahead with its planned changes, even if New Jersey did not receive the grant.

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