Race to the Top Scopes of Work - An Analysis of Tennessee Districts Plans for Using Local Race to the Top Funds
Taking Note
September 2010
ESSAYS ON INNOVATIVE IDEAS AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN PUBLIC EDUCATION
Race to the Top Scopes of Work:
An Analysis of Tennessee Districts’ Plans for Using Local Race to the Top Funds
On March 29, 2010, Tennessee was one of just
two states awarded funding in the first round of
the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the
Top competition. Federal guidelines required
that Tennessee’s $500 million award be
split evenly between state and local projects.
The $250 million for local projects was allocated between the state’s 136 school districts
according to the federal Title I formula, which is
based on the number of economically disadvantaged students in a district.1 Four-year district
awards ranged from $44,709 in Richard City
Special School District to $68,670,722 in
Memphis City Schools, with a median award
of $684,719. This memo outlines the process
Tennessee used to assist districts in submitting
their scopes of work and analyzes the activities
which districts funded in their scopes of work.
Background
After the excitement of winning Race to the Top
(RTTT) settled, it rapidly became clear to state
education officials that one of the most immediate tasks was assisting districts in developing
their local scopes of work, which were due to
the U.S. Department of Education on June 28
(exactly 90 days after Tennessee was awarded
RTTT). As a first step in informing districts
about the scope of work process, the Tennessee
Department of Education (TDOE) hosted three
regional meetings across the state on April
21-23, 2010. These meetings were attended
by superintendents, school board members,
and other key education officials and provided
broad guidance on scopes of work. For example,
TDOE officials outlined the major components
of the state’s RTTT application and emphasized
that RTTT funds could not be used to supplant
current expenditures and had to be aligned
with the strategies outlined in the state’s RTTT
application. Within these broad guidelines,
however, TDOE emphasized it would try to give
districts maximum flexibility. At these regional
SCORE
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Scope of Work Spending Overview
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Turning around
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meetings, districts were provided a scope of
work template, which was an Excel spreadsheet
that required a brief description, performance
metric, project personnel, and dollar amount
for each budgeted activity.
TDOE’s regional field service centers (FSCs)
were assigned the task of supporting school
systems in writing their scopes of work. Realizing there was often only one employee at each
FSC who had the necessary expertise to assist
districts, the Tennessee State Collaborative on
Reforming Education (SCORE), in collaboration
with TDOE, hired a consultant to work in partnership with each FSC to support districts in
writing their scopes of work. The consultants,
who were selected based on their leadership in
their respective region, included four current
or former superintendents, three higher education officials, and one local foundation director.
1207 18th Avenue South, Suite 326, Nashville, TN 37212
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tel 615.727.1545
These consultants and their FSC counterparts
held a total of 12 regional workshops, 55
one-on-one meetings, and 165 telephone conversations with district leaders. In addition, the
consultants and FSC directors reviewed every
scope of work an average of two times before
the scopes were submitted to the state.
To coordinate this support network, SCORE
facilitated a twice weekly call with senior TDOE
staff (often including the Commissioner of Education), FSC directors, and RTTT consultants.
On these calls, the state reported the latest
news regarding its plans around RTTT implementation and answered questions that the
consultants and FCS directors were hearing in
the field. Answers to the questions from these
calls (as well as answers to questions submitted
directly to TDOE) were posted in a continuously updated Frequently Asked Questions
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fax 615.727.1569
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www.tnscore.org