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Mark Parkinson on Education |
The same can be said of our investment in our public schools. While other states were shy to adopt public education, we embraced it. Our leaders made the conscious decision clear back in the 1860s to spend money on public education. This commitment to public schools was not one time or intermittent; it was long-lasting. It is at the very essence of what makes Kansas, Kansas.
Throughout our history this has worked. We developed a world class public school system. It happened because those that came before us had vision and the courage to make investments in our future.
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.