Will Arne Duncan exercise the “
nuclear option” in Race to the Top Round II by declaring that not enough states deserve funding and sending unused funds back to the Treasury? Margot Rogers, the outgoing chief of staff to Secretary Arne Duncan, in an
interview with
EdWeek’s Michele McNeil, indicates that move is not likely:
Q: The decision to award Race to the Top to Delaware and Tennessee—why those two and not, say, just pick one winner? Or three? Was this a case where [Secretary Duncan] went in his office and thought it over for a half-an-hour and came out and said, “This is the decision”? Or was it the [executive committee] sitting around debating it?
A: In the final analysis, he’s the kind of leader that you know owns those kinds of decisions for this department, and he’s very good at it. This decision—the data drove this decision. There was a big gap between state two and state three, and that’s where you go. The next time, you won’t have
