Some Denver-area schools could get special attention if Colorado wins hundreds of millions of dollars in competitive Race to the Top grants.
Federal education officials told governors from across the country that they must develop plans to turn around the bottom 1 percent of schools in their states, said Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, who attended the North Carolina conference. In Colorado, which has more than 1,800 schools, that represents about 20 schools.
It’s the newest clue as to how the Department of Education will decide which states get a share of the $4.5 billion earmarked for school innovation.
“We (could) turn around the most chronically low-performing schools in the state in the course of four to five years,” O’Brien said in a conference call with reporters. “We would see that lower drag on average test scores moving up.”
How the state measures schools is changing from a system based largely on standardized Colorado Student Assessment Program tests to measurements of how well students progress from year to year. That could change which schools get special attention.
As of 2008, more than half of Colorado’s bottom 20 schools were in the Denver area.
O’Brien, who met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, said guidelines for how states can compete for the Race to the Top money will be out in mid-July.
States will submit their proposals by October, and Duncan’s department will decide which states qualify by December.
The money, at one point estimated at $500 million for Colorado, would arrive in qualifying states by the first quarter of 2010.
O’Brien said she thinks Colorado is well-positioned for the competition, based on her conversations with Duncan.
“Over and over again, we were either ahead of the curve or right solid in the middle of what they asked,” she said.
