A review of how Race to the Top finalist applications were scored by the Democrats for Education Reform, the Education Equality Project and Education Reform Now found that in some areas, scorers ignored the rules about scoring applications created by last year's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In others, states were given a pass undeservedly. And they found that states may have a misconception of what is important in other arenas.

"In some places, raters actually ignored the instructions given by the USDOE. For example, some raters awarded points in Data Systems according to a different set of criteria than the 12 specified," they wrote. "In the next round, USDOE will need to provide explicit instructions to reviewers and do more to ensure that those instructions are followed."

The Economic Policy Institute wasn't so thrilled with how the states were graded, either. "Because the awards were based on precise numerical scores, the process was presented as objective and scientific. However, further examination suggests that the selection of Delaware and Tennessee was subjective and arbitrary, more a matter of bias or chance than a result of these states’ superior compliance with reform policies."

The EPI notes that states had to weigh whether they wanted to pursue policies that would win Race to the Top grants, or policies that would win Elementary and Secondary Education Act grants in the future. "The two sets of policy priorities overlap, but are not identical," William Peterson and Richard Rothstein wrote. In one scenario, Georgia would have beat Tennessee. In another, Pennsylvania would have.

"Pennsylvania, in short, has now been told by the Department of Education that if it wants to compete successfully in the next round of RTT competition, then the state should downplay its focus on early childhood and science education, and put its efforts instead into categories that get more points but which, in fact, have a much weaker research base."

The Democrats for Education Reform, the Education Equality Project and Education Reform Now found that while Delaware and Tennessee had major buy-in from their unions, whatever Florida politicians may be saying, this wasn't a make-or-break factor, the groups found. "Rhode Island, with the lowest union support (4%) of any of the final 16 — except Washington, DC (0%) — scored higher than three states that had 100% union support (KY, OH, and MA) and one that had 99% union support (NC)."

They also didn't like that all 16 finalists seemed to be given a pass on turning around low-achieving schools. "No state of the final 16 received less than 86% in this category. Given the difficulty all states have had in turning around their lowest-achieving schools, we find it hard to believe that high scores in this category reflect uniformly credible and ambitious approaches to school intervention."

Several states were offered specific advice for improving their applications, which they called "once-in-a-lifetime opportunities" for change. It's not important, they said, whether the various stakeholders in a particular state are happy.

While there is still plenty of debate about the effects of Race to the Top, which was designed to provoke major change using just a fraction of the pool of stimulus money set aside for education, these groups are satisfied to note that some of those changes are already happening -- and that should remain the focus of the applications.

"Whether or not all the adults are 'happy' with what a state has proposed should not trump what ultimately best propels improvements in the quality of education provided to students and the choices afforded parents."

Next time around, however, the EPI wants the U.S. Department of Education to take a different approach. Round Two applications are due June 1, with awards to be announced in December. "We recommend instead that the Department abandon this complexity, and move to a simpler 'pass/fail' system for the next round of the competition. Even a pass/fail system will have errors, as states that are close to whatever standard the Department employs will either arbitrarily receive awards or be denied. So the benefit of the doubt should be given to borderline states: any states that undertake reasonable efforts to improve their elementary and secondary education systems should receive awards. Only those patently contemptuous of the reform process should be denied."