With MOUs signed, applications submitted, and the words ?buy-in? not falling as freely from reporters mouths, Race to the Top has felt a bit dormant lately. Finalists will be announced in late July and final awards handed to winning states by September.
Should Ohio win the $400 million it is seeking, it's important to know who will be affected. Specifically, what type of students will the much-talked-about funding touch? The state education department has touted that nearly 62 percent of the state's public school kids will be impacted, including high numbers of African-American, Hispanic, limited English proficient, and economically disadvantaged students.? But what about participation of schools by level of academic performance?
Ohio uses an ?A? through ?F? system to rate its public schools.? As you can see from the graphs below, of the students in RttT-participating charter schools, only 37 percent of those that would get funding attend the worst schools in the state (those rated D or F). Among district students, the number is starker: just 12 percent of district students in RttT-participating schools attend one that is rated D or F.
It's important to note that this distribution of students in RttT schools by performance rating is roughly proportional to the overall distribution of students by school rating. Still, for a program whose primary emphasis includes turning around the lowest performing schools, this data show that ? in Ohio at least ? Race to the Top funds won't flow in any targeted or strategic fashion to actually reach the schools serving the neediest children.
Or, looking at the data another way, the chart below shows the percentage of kids (charter and district) within each performance category that are signed on for RttT ? and what percentage are not.? Among all Ohio students in schools rated Academic Emergency (F), 17 percent of them are in schools not participating in Race to the Top. Among students in the next-to-worst category, Academic Watch, 15 percent of them won't receive funding.
Now that applications are in and there's not much to do but wait for the USDOE to make decisions on who should win funding, we'll continue to parse through the data and illustrate characteristics of the schools whose students will be affected should Ohio win. Stay tuned for more analysis.
-Fordham Ohio team