AZ next to last in “Race To The Top” race

by David Safier

This is just sad.

Out of 40 states plus the District of Columbia that applied to win a piece of the largest federal education grant ever awarded, Arizona's application ranked 40th.

Only South Dakota posted a worse score.

It's not that Arizona didn't try. A 60 member group Brewer put together drafted a 300 page proposal. But it was mostly hot air.

One federal grant reviewer summarized Arizona's application in this way: "There are many statements of vision and aspiration, but a lack of high quality plans with respect to how the state will arrive at its goals … The application as a whole lacks a theory of change."

Arizona is good at cutting money for schools and fighting against court orders to spend more on ESL. But when it comes to a "theory of change," a way to improve things, our leaders don't have much to say, except "charters are better than district schools" and "private schools are better than charters."

When a state declares its schools failures and uses that as a reason to defund them, it's really no surprise that the feds don't think we're trying to "Race to the Top."

QUESTION: Was this story covered in the Star? I don't remember seeing it. Anyone remember?