Transparency Watch: Race to Top Judges to be Kept Secret
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has pledged to conduct an open, transparent competition for $4 billion in Race to the Top funds.
But the Education Department is falling short on one key piece: letting the public know who will judge the competition.
The department has vetted and selected 60 peer reviewers, and there will be a training session for them tomorrow. But the department won't say who they are—that will be announced in April when the winners are named. These are the folks who are tasked with reading through thousands of pages of applications from 40 states, plus the District of Columbia, and scoring them on a complex, 500-point grading scale. Although Duncan has the final say on who wins, the peer reviewers hold a considerable amount of power in determining who wins and who loses.
Who are the Education Experts that will Judge Race to the Top???
