In late August, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that the District, along with nine states, had won the second round of the Race to the Top grant competition, earning $75 million to invest in D.C.’s dismal public school system. This is a huge victory for the District’s struggling public school system, which badly needs the funds, and more proof that Fenty has capably managed education reform over the last four years.
The $75 million grant is exactly the amount that the District’s application sought—an impressive fact since the District finished last among 16 finalists last March in the first round of the grant competition. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and DCPS deserve the credit for re-tooling the city’s application in the interim, laying out a clearer vision for science, technology, and math education, and ultimately improving the District’s standing in the final rankings.
Rhee said the money from the $4.35 billion program, which is part of last fall’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would primarily go toward the further development of DCPS’s human capital—in other words, improving teacher training and performance—which many have credited as the key to progress in recent national assessments.
It is also encouraging that Rhee plans on hiring “data coaches” for several schools to help them better utilize data on school performance, one of the areas in which the District’s application was weak.
Though Rhee has already said she wants to give $6 million directly to a few low-performing schools, another portion of the money will go toward some of the District’s dozens of public charter schools, which often suffer from a lack of funding.
The grant victory obviously comes at an opportune time for Fenty, who is facing a stiff challenge from D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray in the Democratic mayoral primary on Sept. 14. Voters should consider the Race to the top win as another in a series of tangible education-related accomplishment Fenty has made in the last four years. The announcement is also another justification for Rhee’s unpopular but successful tactics, including the IMPACT teacher evaluation system, which have met with opposition from the Washington Teachers’ Union.
Rhee and the rest of DCPS deserve credit for securing the full $75 million grant. That the money will go to improving teacher evaluations and charter schools should have a concrete impact on long-neglected students of the District. All in all, the win in Race to the Top is a win for Fenty, Rhee, and their vision for DCPS.
