Race to Top Funds Prompt District, School-Level Efforts

Districts using aid to experiment

By Sean Cavanagh

Ed Week

Years ago, when he was working as an English teacher in Japan, David Folmer watched with curiosity as his colleagues spent time huddling in common areas before their classes, planning lessons. After their classes, his Japanese co-workers would often meet again to talk about what worked well, and what didn’t.

Mr. Folmer didn’t understand those teachers’ methods at the time. But now the mathematics teacher and a group of fellow educators at Middleton High School, in Tampa, Fla., are using a variation of that model, called “lesson study,” to plan and refine their daily instruction.

Over the next few years, schools across Florida will be following the example of Middleton High School and implementing lesson study. Those schools’ efforts will be funded through the federal Race to the Top program. They are part of a raft of state and local efforts financed with relatively little fanfare through the $4 billion national competition, better known for the large-scale school improvement efforts it is supporting in 11 states and the District of Columbia.

Much of the public and political attention surrounding the Race to the Top has focused on sweeping—and often contentious—state plans to make changes in teacher pay and evaluation, improve data systems, expand charter schools, and overhaul other aspects of education.

But other, mostly overlooked Race to the Top projects are rolling out in winning states, and state and local officials argue that those initiatives have the potential to create lasting improvements in schools.

In Georgia, a portion of the state’s $700 million award is paying for a mini-competition for schools and districts to test new approaches in teacher recruitment, the cultivation of students’ problem-solving skills, and other areas.

In Maryland, the state is using a piece of its $250 million grant to support the development of a new elementary-teaching certificate in science, technology, engineering, and math—the so-called STEM subjects—as well as to build schools’ use of world languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi.

In Florida, dozens of districts for years have been using some form of lesson study in either a broad or limited way, in some cases as part of efforts to help struggling schools, state officials say. One district using the model is the 195,000-student Hillsborough County school system, where Middleton High School is located. The state was sufficiently encouraged by lesson study to support its growth through Florida’s $700 million Race to the Top award, said Diana Bourisaw, the state’s deputy chancellor for school improvement and student achievement.

“It takes the teacher out of isolation,” said Mr. Folmer, who has helped implement the model at his school. “We learn from each other. We know each other’s teaching styles, what works, what doesn’t. We share ideas.”

Sparking Experiments

The Race to the Top program, which was created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the federal stimulus program) was designed to .... 

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