How 'Race to the Top' is rewriting U.S. education

[cavegal]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100808/pl_mcclatchy/3585264;_ylt=AnaBDvi8Se7Boy.FfZB2aRsDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTJqMGswdjZ1BGFzc2V0A21jY2xhdGNoeS8yMDEwMDgwOC8zNTg1MjY0BHBvcwM4BHNlYwN5bl9hcnRpY2xlX3N

WASHINGTON — When Education Secretary Arne Duncan  inserted a half-page program description into the economic stimulus act last year, few except top Democratic leaders knew that it would create Race to the Top, a multibillion-dollar sweepstakes to overhaul U.S. schools that gave Duncan's department unprecedented power.

With only $4.3 billion — less than 1 percent of federal, state and local education dollars — Race to the Top is one of many small, relatively inexpensive projects that lawmakers plopped into the recovery act. What's striking about the competition, which awards millions to the states that best adopt Duncan-backed policies, is that the secretary arguably got more states to buy his brand of change in 18 months than any other U.S. school chief had in the Cabinet-level Education Department's 29-year history.

Forty-one states applied for the first round. Tennessee and Delaware were declared victors in March, and state education leaders spent the spring badgering their legislatures to pass Race to the Top-friendly laws for round two. Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia subm

[JohnnyReb]

Sniff...sniff...do I smell Bill Ayers?