New York State has won coveted federal Race to the Top grant funds in the second round of competition.
State education officials spent this morning in a meeting as news of the win began to spread. Governor Paterson, State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, Commissioner David Steiner and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are expected to hold press conferences later in the afternoon. We’ll have updates as we learn more.
UPDATE: The other winners are Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Maryland, Hawaii, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia.
One big question we don’t know yet: exactly how much money the state has won. But by our math (see below), it seems possible that all of the winners will get the maximum amounts for which they are eligible. And Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch just told me that she’s heard the state will receive almost all of the $696 million it asked for in its application.
UPDATE: State officials have confirmed that New York’s application will be fully funded. New York City is likely to see about $250-300 million of the state’s award.
Here’s our summary of how the state plans to use the money, and here’s our rundown of the lead-up to today’s announcement.
New York received the second-highest score overall in the competition’s scoring rubric, coming behind only Massachusetts. (The list of the winning applicants and their final scores is below the jump.) This is the state’s second try at the funds; in the first round, New York placed second-to-last among all the finalists.
The formal announcement of winners will come this afternoon from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. We’ll have updates throughout the day.
Here’s the U.S. Department of Education’s breakdown of the scores of each winner. New York came in second place overall, a big jump from the first round.
And here’s our calculation of how much money each winning state could receive. We’ve assumed that federal officials are giving each state and D.C. the total amount for which they are eligible; the total comes to just under the $3.4 billion amount federal officials are awarding today.