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What 24th Place Looks Like: Breaking Down Iowa’s Race to the Top Score

by John on 09/04/10 at 3:37 pm

How did the State of Iowa do on it’s Race to the Top application?  With a ranking of 24 (Delaware was #1 and South Dakota was last at #41) and a final score of 346 (Delware: 454.6; South Dakota: 135.8), there were both strengths and weaknesses in Iowa’s review.

Here is a graphical breakdown of the reveiwers’ scores, shown as an average of all 5 reviewers’ individual scores (reviewer scores for all states can be found here).

I am not privy to all the reasons behind the high and low scores, so I welcome comments from you on why you believe the application was strong in some places and weak in others.

State Success Factors

Much of the discussion in Iowa during the run up to apply for Race to the Top funds centered on whether enough LEAs agreed with the overall plan. The score for conveying how LEA participation will translate into statewide impact suggests how well that went.  While some scores in this section were high, the big  points were lost on being able to demonstrate significant progress in improving student outcomes, building capacity to implement the plan if awarded, and translating LEA participation into impact.



Standards and Assessments

It’s hard not to see the score on adopting standards (5 out of a possible 20 — ouch).  This is interesting in light of the work to roll out the new Iowa Core Curriculum.  I clearly don’t know enough about the criteria the Dept. of Education was using for that category.

Data Systems to Support Instruction

Good marks on two categories, but a low mark on ability to convey plans on how a statewide longitudinal data system would work.

Great Teachers and Leaders

Iowa’s plans for developing and retaining great teachers and leaders did not review well. Yes, there were pretty high marks for supporting teachers and principals as well as for using student growth as a teacher/leader quality measure.  But the state was hit with low scores for plans on using evaluations to inform decisions on teacher and principal effectiveness, and a low score on plans to provide high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals.

Turning Around the Lowest Achieving Schools

While Iowa did OK in two categories here, the state only received half the points possible for being able to intervene in the lowest-achieving schools and LEAs.

General

Iowa received no points (none!) for whatever was written about other significant reform conditions within the state. The state was also dinged pretty hard for not being able to show it could ensure successful conditions for high-performing charter schools and other innovative schools.

Update

Here’s a chart summarizing the scores by major section for the two winners (Delaware and Tennesse), for Iowa, for the worst (South Dakota), and the average score for all applicants. Iowa is at or below average in most categories, with Delaware and Tennessee clearly different from the rest. I have to believe it would be instructive to read the applications for South Dakota and Delaware to examine the differences.  You can if you like. All the applications and the reviews that ensued are available here.

Ottumwa High School: CC flickr user BRrivey