Friday, September 10, 2010

The Educated Reporter: We won RTTT! So now what?

The Educated Reporter: We won RTTT! So now what?

We won RTTT! So now what?

Here are suggestions for those of you covering states that won Race to the Top money. This comes from advice I gave someone whose state won in the first round, so some of it is specific to that application, but I’ll reheat it and toss it with a bit of fresh parsley and see if it gives you a little food for thought.

1. If your state is creating a separate school district to manage turnaround schools, you need to need to cover this as you would any other district. Does it have a school board? What kind of oversight/public accountability will be built in?


2. I think a fairly decent if simplistic template for a few of these issues is: How are things done now? How will they be done? What is gained or lost in going from point A to point B—potential unintended consequences, intended