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Bob McDonnell on Education |
We have increased the percentage of K-12 funding going into the classroom from 62% to 64%. Graduation rates are up.
We now equip low performing schools with turnaround specialists and additional resources from the Zero tolerance policy for failing schools Institution to provide a high quality education alternative for children attending any chronically underperforming public elementary or secondary school. The Opportunity Educational Institution will be a new statewide school division to turnaround
The President and I agree on expanding the number of high-quality charter schools, and rewarding teachers for excellent performance. More school choices for parents and students mean more accountability and greater achievement.
A child's educational opportunity should be determined by her intellect and work ethic, not by her zip code.
In a debate that touched on taxes, gun control, abortion, education and same-sex marriage, it was McDonnell who praised Obama and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), commending the former for championing charter schools and the latter for his handling of the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech.
Our states need more time to properly evaluate the changes needed to resubmit our applications, as well as to engage in meaningful and collaborative discussions with our legislatures, our schools, our unions, and our communities. We need to make informed changes to our applications, whether in the area of evaluations, turnarounds, standards, or data collection. These changes will be stronger if they are informed by the comments of those who reviewed our initial application.
Therefore, we request that you considerably accelerate the timeline for release of peer reviewers' comments and scores from Phase One or extend the deadline to submit our Phase 2 application until July 1, 2010; so our states can continue the necessary hard work, without losing momentum, to reform education and apply for Race to the Top Phase Two. As Governors -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- we were proud to stand with President Obama, and with you, to bring about real systemic change in education through the Race to the Top competition. Under the first phase of competition, you saw forty states and the District of Columbia respond to your call. While only fifteen states and the District of Columbia were selected as finalists for Phase One, we all remain committed to pursuing necessary reforms to help ensure that our states' applications are competitive for the second phase of funding.
The finalists were announced on March 4, with applications for next round due less than 90 days later on June 1. You also announced that our comments and feedback on our applications would not be available until sometime in April, which would further reduce that already short timeline for meaningful course correction to fewer than 60 days.
