The U.S. Government Accountability Office recognizes that it's really hard for states to report all of the information on how educational institutions are spending their money from the stimulus package -- more than $70-billion for schools and colleges. But they should be giving more detail than they are, the GAO recommended in a report released today. "While most states cannot provide information on how each subrecipient is using its funds, providing more information ... could help the public gain a better understanding of how the funds are being used," the watchdog agency concluded. From The Chronicle of Higher Education.

While celebrations were breaking out in Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Florida, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio after the 10 were named winners of round two of the Obama administration’s national education-reform competition, Race to the Top, controversy was mounting over some of the more surprising winners and losers. From Newsweek.

Nine states and the District of Columbia were awarded stimulus-funded education grants Tuesday, ending an interstate competition called “Race to the Top.” The grants, totaling $4.3 billion, rewarded states for implementing reforms advocated by the Obama administration.

Nowhere was the competition among states more fierce than in their efforts to adopt a common academic curriculum known as the “Common Core” standards. So far, 36 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the new standards. Many of them seemed motivated by the possibility that doing so would help their applications for the Race to the Top money. By David Harrison, Stateline.org.

What will the Miami-Dade and Broward districts do with the more than $100 million expected to flow into South Florida schools over the next four years?

They'll start with new strategies to recruit, retain and reward effective teachers. They'll work to close the achievement gap and make sure more South Florida students go on to college.

On Tuesday, Florida was named one of the big winners in the federal government's second round of the Race to the Top competition, landing $700 million for its public schools. The Miami-Dade district expects its share of the winnings to exceed $60 million. Broward stands to get about $45 million. By Kathleen McGrory of The Miami Herald.

New York's win of nearly $700 million in federal education funds came three months after bruising negotiations in Albany that culminated in an 11th-hour agreement. Now, a much tougher battle begins.

New York's application to the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top competition was essentially a promise of what it would do if it won the money. Those pledges involve sweeping reform to the public education system of policies and problems that have remained intractable for decades.

"We know that the hard work is ahead of us," said Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the Board of Regents. By Barbara Martinez of The Wall Street Journal.

Leaders from the Houston Independent School District are speaking out about the new chance for school districts to apply for a big federal grant, even though Governor Rick Perry already turned down the money.

Last week, Perry withdrew Texas from the competition for the Race for the Top grants, turning down $700 million. On Tuesday, President Obama expanded the program to allow individual districts to apply. HISD Superintendent Dr. Terry Grier says the money would have helped kids in Houston, and he's hoping to try to apply for the grants. By Deborah Wrigley, ABC-13

Nebraska school districts will get a $59 million boost from the federal government to use next school year, a budget cushion that could help stave off an unknown number of job losses. By Nate Jenkins, The Associated Press

An informed Washington source told The Dispatch that the U.S. Department of Education will announce at noon today that Ohio is among the states that will receive funding in the second round of the competition to improve schools. Ohio had requested $400 million, but it was not immediately clear how much it will get. By Catherine Candisky and Jonathan Riskind, The Columbus Dispatch.

State and federal officials tell The Associated Press that New York is expected to win millions of dollars in federal education funding when the Race to the Top program grants are announced. The amount of the award hasn’t been disclosed. It is expected to be announced along with the winning states at noon Tuesday. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made public. New York missed out on $700 million in the first round of the Obama administration’s program to entice improvements in instruction in public schools. But the state has since increased the number of charter schools and made other improvements in schools and governance that hurt New York in the first round. By The Associated Press.

he U. S. Education Department is set to announce Tuesday the winners in the second round of its Race to the Top competition, which grants a portion of $3.4 billion to states that have provided plans to put their education systems in line with the department's school reform goals.

Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia turned in applications for the second round. That number was whittled down to 19 finalists a few months ago.

The 19 finalists then sent representatives to Washington to make their case in front of a group of peer reviewers and education department officials over the summer. By Sally Holland, CNN.

New York finds out today if its flurry of legislative changes this spring was enough to persuade Washington to fork over $700 million in education dollars. Winners from among 19 finalists competing for a piece of the $3.4 billion Race to the Top funds will be announced in the morning.

If New York wins, the money will go primarily to building a statewide data system to track student progress and developing a statewide curriculum. By Rachel Monahan and Meredith Kolodner, New York Daily News.

As California educators wait anxiously to hear whether the state will be awarded funds from the $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition today, the nation's leading civil rights organizations have attacked the race for funds as undermining the civil rights of the nation's poor and disadvantaged children.  

So far, California has lost out in two contests for education stimulus funds, as I have noted in previous blog posts.

In a highly critical broadside [PDF] issued last month against many aspects of the Obama administration's education agenda, eight civil rights group, including the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, singled out the Race to the Top competition for its fiercest criticism:

If education is a civil right, children in "winning" states should not be the only ones who have the opportunity to learn to learn in high quality environments.  Such an approach reinstates the antiquated and highly politicized frame for distributing federal support to states that civil rights organizations fought to remove in 1965. 

By Louis Freedberg, California Watch.

Rhode Island finds out Tuesday whether it will receive up to $75 million for aggressive education reforms, and state officials have their fingers crossed the news will be good.U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is scheduled to announce the winners of the $4.35-billion federal Race to the Top competition. The competition rewards states that embrace changes such as expanding charter schools, tying yearly teacher evaluations to student test scores and making academic standards more rigorous. By Jennifer Jordan, Providence Journal.

Tennessee has launched a new First to the Top website to help keep Tennesseans informed about the state’s Race to the Top program implementation. Located online at www.TN.gov/FirstToTheTop/, the site includes Tennessee’s application and related documents, resources for educators, school systems and vendors, and details about First to the Top programs and projects. Visitors to the site can also subscribe to receive periodic updates about First to the Top implementation. From The Chattanoogan.

Memo to Congress and the U.S. Department of Education: Stay out of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. At least that was the message at an Education Commission of the States forum session Friday from three state policymakers whose states have either won the Race to the Top competition (Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat from Tennessee) or are finalists (Dwight Jones, the state schools chief in Colorado, and Mitchell Chester, the state schools chief in Massachusetts.) By Alyson Klein, Education Week.

As governors gear up to apply for federal money from the $10 million Education Jobs Fund, states and school districts are wrestling with how they plan to spend the aid the Obama administration said was desperately needed to save what the administration said would be some 160,000 educators’ jobs that otherwise would be lost. By Dakarai I. Aarons and Alyson Klein, Education Week

More teacher and staff furloughs could be on the horizon for this - and next - school year for the Cherokee County School District. County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Petruzielo gave a grim forecast to the school board during its annual "Trends in Education" work session on Thursday night. By Kristal Dixon, Cherokee Tribune

Despite Michigan’s failure to qualify as a finalist in the second round of the federal Race to the Top initiative — a grant which would have brought $400 million to the state to implement educational reforms — Gaylord Community School’s budget will not be impacted. By Michael Jones, Gaylord Herald Times

The Colorado Department of Education this week notified school districts of the amounts each likely will receive under the new federal Edujobs program, which is designed to reduce the loss of jobs caused by budget cuts. Most districts are expected to receive grants equal to 2.9 percent of their total program funding, which is the amount of state and local revenue that’s devoted to school operating costs. Most districts experienced total program cuts ranging from 3.6 to 6.3 percent for 2010-11. By Todd Engdahl, EducationNewsColorado

The federal government recently handed $1.2 billion to California schools to help save teachers' jobs. But education advocates fear that state legislators will use the funds to shrink California's $19.1-billion deficit instead. By Shane Goldmacher, Los Angeles Times

The state’s targeted reduction to Bennington School District’s education spending of almost $100,000 is just a fraction of what the district will need to cut to meet the state’s request, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union administrators told the board Monday. In actuality, the district will need to decrease its budget by more than $500,000. By Dawson Raspuzzi, Bennington Banner

South Carolina does not qualify for $143.4 million in federal education assistance approved last week because the state no longer meets minimum higher education funding requirements.
South Carolina is one of seven states that have failed to meet funding requirements for either K-12 education or higher education. By John O'Connor, The State

Each month when IDEA Money Watch updates its state-by-state ARRA spending reports, its staff wonders about the low rate of obligation of the $16.4 million IDEA Part B funds available to the District of Columbia. As of July 30, 2010, DC showed having spent just 8% of its available funds – or a little over $1 million. We found this particularly interesting given DC’s long history of extremely poor performance in implementing the basic provisions of IDEA.

As schools handed out pink slips to teachers this spring, states made a beeline to Washington to plead for money for their ravaged education budgets. But now that the federal government has come through with $10 billion, some of the nation’s biggest school districts are balking at using their share of the money to hire teachers right away. By Motoko Rich, New York Times