Scopes of Work: Lessons from Delaware and Tennessee
THE FIRST 100 DAYS
LESSONS LEARNED FROM RACE TO THE TOP ROUND ONE WINNERS
AUGUST 2010
Scopes of Work:
Lessons from Delaware and Tennessee
On March 29, 2010, Delaware and Tennessee
were selected as the only two states to receive
funding in Round 1 of the U.S. Department
of Education’s Race to the Top (RTTT)
competition. According to federal guidelines,
fifty percent of Race to the Top funds had to
be distributed to local education agencies
(LEAs) that had signed on to their state’s RTTT
reform plan, and those participating LEAs
had to submit plans for how they would spend
their portion of RTTT within 90 days of states
winning RTTT. In Tennessee, this meant there
were 90 days to help 136 school districts and
4 special schools decide how to spend $250
million. In Delaware, this meant there were 90
days to help 19 districts and 18 charter schools
craft plans for spending $59 million. While
neither state would claim to have had a perfect
process, Delaware and Tennessee’s scope of
work experiences offer some key lessons for
future Race to the Top winners.
Common Challenges
Delaware and Tennessee faced at least three
common challenges as they attempted to assist
districts with developing scopes of work (the
technical name for districts’ plans to spend local Race to the Top funds over the four years of
the grant).
First, both states faced communication
challenges.
Although both Delaware and
Tennessee had received wide support
from stakeholders in their Race to the
Top applications, there was relatively little
knowledge among superintendents in both
states about the details of their respective
state’s RTTT application and how districts
would be allowed to spend their share of
RTTT funds. This communications effort was
complicated by the fact that while districts
were trying to write their scopes of work, both
states were trying to decide the specific types
of local expenditures they would approve (e.g.,
SCORE
•
whether to approve technology expenditures)
and the exact implementation schedule for
state-funded RTTT services to districts (which
many districts wanted to understand so that
they didn’t spend local funds on services the
state would provide).
Second, districts had varying levels of
capacity to develop plans for implementing
the specific reforms called for by RTTT. For
example, many districts had limited expertise
or experience proactively recruiting and
retaining high-quality teachers and leaders as
well as turning around low-performing schools
in the ways required by RTTT. Additionally, the
of approximately four times more scopes of
work than in Delaware. The following sections
examine how both Delaware and Tennessee
approached these challenges.
Delaware
Communications
During the second week of May, the Delaware
Department of Education (DDOE) held regional
one-day workshops in each of the state’s three
counties to introduce districts and charter
schools to the scope of work process. At each
meeting, state leaders shared information
about the state’s RTTT plan, presented scope
of work guidelines, and shared the state’s
scope of work template (see details below). In
addition, each of these meetings devoted time
to working one-on-one with each district and
school in attendance to clarify a vision for and
begin drafting their individual scope of work
plan.
Several documents were distributed to
districts and schools at these workshops.
The most comprehensive document was the
15-page scope of work template. This template
began by outlining the nine characteristics
on which a plan would be assessed including
whether it was (1) comprehensive (2) integrated
(3) collaborative (4) prioritized (5) sequenced
(6) evidence-based (7) best-practice oriented
(8) outcome-focused and (9) ambitious but
achievable. After describing each of these
characteristics in detail, the template provided
room for districts to write a 2-4 page summary
of the vision, priorities, goals, capacity, success
factors, and risks for the district’s scope of
work. After this summary, the template asked
districts to outline their specific reform plans
in each of 12 priority areas, with a deep focus
on 4-6 areas (chosen by districts) and a lighter
focus on the other 6-8 areas.
The twelve priorities areas were: (1)
Supporting the development of new standards,
In both states, there was
relatively little knowledge among
superintendents about the details
of their respective state’s RTTT
application and how districts
would be allowed to spend their
share of RTTT funds.
drafting of a detailed four-year scope of work
within the limited 90-day timeframe demanded
a significant time commitment from district
and school leaders at the same time spring
testing and other end-of-the-year activities
were occurring.
Third, states faced the difficult challenge of
trying to determine when a district’s scope of
work was high-quality. Neither Delaware nor
Tennessee had proposed a formal rubric for
judging scopes of work in their Race to the Top
applications, and this left both states trying
to develop a reliable approval process at the
same time they were trying to assist districts in
writing their scopes of work.
While both Delaware and Tennessee faced
all three of these challenges, these challenges
were especially daunting in Tennessee,
where the state had to oversee the approval
1207 18th Avenue South, Suite 326, Nashville, TN 37212
•
tel 615.727.1545
•
fax 615.727.1569
•
www.tnscore.org/rttt