Perdue, Cox to pitch for state schools

By Kristina Torres

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Gov. Sonny Perdue and state schools Superintendent Kathy Cox will lead a delegation Wednesday to Washington to make their pitch for a piece of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top education fund.

The fund will distribute up to $4 billion to states that embrace education reform. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced March 4 that Georgia is one of 16 finalists chosen for face-to-face meetings.

Reviewers will talk to officials about their application and, according to the federal department, “ensure that the state has the understanding, knowledge, capacity and the will to truly deliver on what is proposed.”

The delegation includes Gwinnett County Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks. His system is one of 23 in Georgia that will pilot Georgia’s reforms.

Georgia is estimated to be eligible for up to a $400 million grant from the fund, although the state’s 200-page application — submitted in January — requests about $460 million. However, Duncan said in a statement that each finalist “has a shot at winning, but most of them will go home as finalists — not as winners.”

That kind of competition seemed to amuse Perdue two weeks ago, when he celebrated the state’s status as a finalist. “I really think we’re already on the radar screen,” he said. Of the state’s proposed reforms, he said, “It’s authentic. This is not anything different than where we were going.”

Yet the proposals, which set ambitious goals over the next few years, are not without controversy. Teachers and some state lawmakers have balked at one of the biggest, a pay-for-performance assessment model that would tie teachers’ pay to how well they teach, not to their experience or level of education. A bill introduced in the Legislature last month has not moved out of committee.

Winners will be announced in the first week of April, although this is only the first round. A second round of applications, for anyone not winning money the first time, is due on June 1. Georgia was one of 40 states and the District of Columbia that applied for the grants. The other finalists are Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.