As the second round of the Race to the Top education grant race continues, eighteen states that exhibited excellence in the Great Teachers and Leaders section of the contest by addressing teacher quality have been named finalists.
According to the New York Times, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina have been chosen for their attention to improving teacher quality, how to train high quality and disperse of low quality teachers in their school systems statewide.
It is expected that 10- 15 of the named finalists will receive part of the $3.4 billion in federal financing to support their education reform goals.
“We want to change the accountability system and stop labeling so many schools as failures,” the Times reports Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, saying in Washington in a speech announcing the finalists. “We want to recognize and reward high-achieving and high-growth schools, offering them the carrots and incentives that we know drive reform and progress.”
In this stage of the Race to the Top Competition, with the added criteria of teacher qualification, it is apparent that states across the nation are really beginning to comprehend that no education reform initiative can be successful without the backbone of a strong teaching staff, in each and every school throughout the nation.
Educators need to understand that the time to step up and be counted as one of the leaders for our students or be left by the wayside in the wake of education reform. The time is now for action in every level of every school district, and underperforming teachers are a burden that our kids future’s can no longer bear.
Posted By: Paul Adams
Tuesday, August 3rd 2010 at 11:40PM
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