Nevada out of ‘race’ for innovation funding

11-16-2009

By Emily Richmond/Las Vegas Sun

Education Secretary Arne Duncan talks about education reform during a speech at the National Press Club in Washington on May 29. Duncan plans to give $4.35 billion to states that use the most innovation in the first round of stimulus spending, and officials here are concerned that Nevada will miss out because of its conservative spending. It’s official: Nevada has been shut out of the “Race to the Top,” a federal grant program offering $4.35 billion to improve the nation’s public schools. Keith Rheault, Nevada’s superintendent of public instruction, said Thursday “it’s looking pretty hopeless ... they won’t even let us come to the starting line.”To compete for the grants, states must, among other qualifying criteria, allow the use of student test scores in the evaluation of their teachers. During a special legislative session in 2003, Nevada lawmakers passed a last-minute bill that explicitly prohibited using test data in teacher evaluations. (more...)

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Nevada out of ‘race’ for innovation funding

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