Gary Schools Ready to Join Race to Top Funding Hunt

January 13, 2010

Gary Community School Corp. administrators, school board members and union representatives signed on to make the district eligible for federal Race to the Top funds at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

The state had set Tuesday as the deadline to submit a memorandum of understanding to the state. The agreements will be sent to the U.S. Department of Education on Jan. 19, and it will decide how to dole out the $4.3 billion in school improvement funds.

Indiana’s proposal for the Race to the Top funds is titled Fast Forward. Any agreement requires the signatures of a district’s superintendent, school board president and teachers’ association leader.

School board member Barbara Leek was appreciative that American Federation of Teachers Local 4 for their cooperation in signing the agreement.

School board member Darren Washington agreed.

"We wouldn’t have been able to do this without you at the table," Washington said.

Leek said there’s a lot unknown about the Fast Forward plan since the state isn’t sharing a lot of details since it thinks it has a winning application.

The lack of information has affected other districts’ ability to submit an application. Teachers union representatives at Lake Ridge Schools refused to sign on to its district’s agreement due to concerns about linking teacher salaries to student performance.

<p& gt;Gary Superintendent Myrtle Campbell said many of her questions were answered at a Dec. 30 meeting with state superintendent Tony Bennett.

"There were concerns by the union about differentiated pay, but the state superintendent said that’s not one of the areas that they are pushing," Campbell said.

Race to the Top seeks to encourage educational innovations and school improvement by recruiting and developing highly qualified teachers and principals, adopting standards and assessments to prepare students for the global economy, and turning around troubled schools.

The agreement submitted on Tuesday is just a starting point for school district. States will find out how much Race to the Top funds they will receive this spring, and districts that agree to the Race to the Top requirements must create a plan for state approval.