Race to the Top 

costs leave schools 

behind

LOHud.com

 

Race to the Top, the Obama 

administration’s ambitious but controversial 

education initiative, is turning out to be a 

major expense for local school districts at a 

time they can least afford it.

When New York applied for a piece of the 

highly competitive $4 billion program, 

school districts were told that most would 

get a share of the pot to pay for programs 

required by Race to the Top. In August, 

New York became one of 12 states to win 

the race and was awarded a maximum 

$700 million federal prize.

But of 54 districts in Westchester, Rockland 

and Putnam counties, eight got no federal 

money. And 31 districts received grants of 

less than $50,000.

At the same time, school officials are 

finding they will have to spend significantly 

more — perhaps 50 to 100 times as much, 

in some cases — to meet Race to the Top’s 

demanding requirements. These include 

the rapid development of a new teacher 

and principal evaluation system that many 

educators oppose and preparation for the 

adoption of new national learning 

standards, known as the Common Core, by 

2014.

“No one did the math,” said Ken Mitchell, 

 

South Orangetown’s superintendent. “Race 

to the Top was fast-tracked, and there was 

no discussion about the costs.”

South Orangetown got a $23,366 piece of 

the state’s Race to the Top pie and spent it 

in two days during the summer on 

administrator training, Mitchell said. But the 

district expects to spend almost $2 million 

over four years to meet the program’s 

demands.

Most districts have not had reason to 

calculate their Race to the Top costs. Doing 

so is complicated because it involves not 

only training, software, textbooks and other 

tangible expenses, but the manpower 

hours put in by school officials who have to 

take time away from working on their 

budgets or other necessary tasks.

But South Orangetown and five other 

Rockland County school districts tried to 

quickly crunch their anticipated Race to the 

Top expenses and reached a startling 

conclusion. The six districts got $393,398 

in Race to the Top money — but expect to 

spend about $10.9 million on the program 

over four years.

“We may have been conservative,” Mitchell 

said.

Also, eight districts in northern Westchester 

and Putnam counties recently tried to 

tabulate their costs and found they will 

have to spend about $3.3 million this year 

alone on Race to the Top. The eight 

districts’ combined grants: $322,571.

“I would gladly give back our $6,000,” said 

Karen Zevin, school board president for 

Croton-Harmon, whose district actually got 

$6,909. “Take it right now. Our costs will 

just keep increasing.”

State Education Commissioner John B. King, 

who became commissioner in July and is an 

unequivocal champion of Race to the Top, 

did not want to hear concerns about costs 

during a visit to Westchester last month.

“It is impossible to separate the cost of 

Race to the Top from the cost of what it 

takes to provide excellent education,” he 

told The Journal News. “Will there be a cost 

to the development of the Common Core 

standards? Sure. But there’s a cost today to 

having many college students enroll in 

remedial classes.

“It is our job to make sure our schools are 

effective,” King said. “We need good 

teacher and principal performance and 

strong professional development. I don’t 

think of them as the costs of Race to the 

Top. They are the costs of trying to 

 

continuously improve our education 

system.”

Many states fought hard to get into the 

program and become eligible for federal 

dollars. New Jersey faced national ridicule 

in 2010 when it lost out because of a 

clerical error. New York’s application, 

prepared by King when he was deputy 

commissioner, won out.

“The state wanted the money,” said Bryan 

Burrell, executive director of the Rockland 

County School Boards Association. “Now the 

districts have to make it work.”

New York was awarded $700 million, half 

of which was allocated to school districts 

using a federal formula that calculates 

student need. New York City got $256 

million out of $350 million. The other half 

of the overall federal grant is for state-level 

activities.

New York had to commit to several federal 

priorities, including new standards and 

tests related to the Common Core; a new 

teacher and principal evaluation system 

that takes into account students’ test 

scores; updated data systems to measure 

student performance; and an openness 

toward charter schools.

The new evaluation system has proved to 

be one of the most divisive issues in the 

state. Districts are having difficulty working 

out the details through collective 

bargaining, as required by state law. But 

the federal government is threatening to 

take back the Race to the Top money if 

progress isn’t made, and Gov. Andrew 

Cuomo is promising to step in.

From the start, there was little talk about 

the costs facing school districts trying to 

create a complex new evaluation system on 

the fly, said Jere Hochman, superintendent 

of Bedford schools, who serves on a state 

task force that tried to figure out how to 

make the whole thing work.

The new evaluations must include extensive 

observations of teachers in classrooms, 

which requires training, preparation, 

written critiques, follow-up plans and 

more. Districts also must develop an 

appeals process for teachers who 

disapprove of their ratings — which could 

lead to high legal costs.

“Appeals could be a huge expense, 

through the roof,” Zevin said.

Hochman said some task force members 

wondered early on whether affluent 

districts would produce more meaningful 

evaluations than needier districts.

 

“There is concern that districts with means 

will be able to take a more ambitious and 

authentic approach to evaluation, and 

those without means will be constrained to 

use more economical lockstep and 

standardized approaches,” he said.

Many districts were apprehensive about 

what Race to the Top would cost them in 

time and money. But nearly all signed a 

voluntary agreement to support its goals as 

they saw that the state was committed to 

going for the federal dollars.

“You could see that the federal resources 

would be fool’s gold,” said Louis Wool, 

Harrison superintendent and president of 

the Lower Hudson Council of School 

Superintendents. His district got $29,260. 

“The costs of implementing Race to the 

Top are astronomical and dramatically 

outstrip what districts are receiving. And 

we are sadly talking about having to spend 

money on new teacher assessments that 

most educators do not think will improve 

the performance of teachers.”Brian Butry, 

spokesman for the New York 

State School Boards Association, said board 

members statewide were worried about 

what Race to the Top could mean.

“You look at the number of changes 

districts are being asked to make in a very 

unstable financial environment, and you 

see why many people thought it wouldn’t 

be worth it,” he said. “Now the state is 

getting the money, laws are on the books 

and districts have to move forward.”

Florida also got a $700 million Race to the 

Top award. School districts were eager to 

get federal money in a state that has 

suffered more than most economically, but 

many are concerned their costs will exceed 

their grants, said Ruth Melton, director of 

legislative relations for the Florida School 

Boards Association.

“Everyone’s initial reaction was that this 

won’t be close to enough money, but cash-

starved school districts are loath to give up 

revenue,” she said. “We’ll have to see if 

districts have enough money to implement 

their plans.”