Race To The Top Reviewers Critique Connecticut's Application

Federal education officials have released a critique of Connecticut’s latest Race to the Top grant application.   Teacher evaluations  were cited as a key reason for the state’s loss of school funding from Washington.  In their report, federal reviewers say Connecticut’s teacher evaluation plan is vague and will take too long to implement. 

Robert Frahm is education reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Speaking on WNPR’s Where We Live, he says the state enacted a school reform law that includes efforts to better evaluate teachers. "The law does say that student performance will be a factor in those evaluations. It does not specify how much a factor.  And it also says that schools will have to consider other factors. And apparently the federal reviewers just felt there were not enough specifics."

Though Connecticut was not among the 2nd round Race to the Top winners, three neighbors- New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island- were.  Deborah Gist is RI’s elementary and secondary school education commissioner. "One of our strongest areas was the section on great teachers and leaders. And that includes everything from improving our teacher preparation programs to implementing our new teacher and principal evaluation system to a commitment that we made to insure that no student in RI will have an ineffective teacher for more than one year in a row."

Critics of Race to the Top say school reform should not be a competition with winners and losers.  

For WNPR, I'm Diane Orson.