State makes Race to the Top deadline, minus some local districts

Today, January 19th, is the deadline for California to submit its application for the Federal Government's Race to the Top program, the Obama administration's nationwide contest in which the prize is a chunk of 4.35 billion dollars in funding for education agencies. Our state did indeed make that deadline, but a number of school districts here in the Bay Area were notably absent in the state's entry.

Take for instance Berkeley Unified.

District Superintendent Bill Huyett said that the state failed to provide enough information to the district for it to join the more than 700 other education agencies in the state who have chosen to participate in the program.

"The board was being required to say that they would abide by everything in the state plan," he said. "There was, and I think still, no state plan for them to look at. Even though there was some indicators of what Race to the Top is about, the state has to build a plan about what the districts need to do."

The district -which is facing an estimated $1.8 million cut to its budget for the district-stood to receive an estimated $175,000 over a four-year period, Huyett said, adding that it would hardly be enough to cover the costs required to hire the necessary personnel to administer the program.

Another absence was from farther south in the East Bay. All of southern Alameda county districts applied for the program, but one - New Haven Unified, which serves Union City.

Kari McVeigh, superintendent of New Haven, says, "It's tempting to say, `There's money available. Let's go after it.' ... But for our district, ... it's not appropriate because of the work we've already started in our classrooms." 

So you might be thinking, "refuse money? In this economy?"

Well, there's an alternate plan. Instead, the district will seek other stimulus funding separate from Race to the Top "that would enable us to continue and expand the innovations that we've already introduced here, without the conditions that are attached to Race to the Top, without diverting us from the work we've already begun, and without the risk of absorbing more mandated costs at a time when the state is continuing to cut funding," McVeigh said.

The federal Race to the Top program asks states to reform in four areas by: