Delaware Chosen as a Finalist for Federal "Race to the Top" Funds

The state of Delaware is one of sixteen finalists in the Race to the Top competition for federal education funds.  Delaware joins 14 other states and the District of Columbia as a Phase One finalist chosen from among the initial pool of 41 first-round applicants.  Governor Markell and his team will travel to Washington D.C. during the week of March 15 to present their case for funding.  The U.S. Department of Education has made the narrative portions of all applications available online. 

Winners for phase 1 will be chosen from among the 16 finalists and announced in April. Applications for phase 2 will be due on June 1 of this year, with finalists announced in August and winners in September.  The only states prohibited from applying in phase 2 are those that receive awards in phase 1.  Panels of 5 peer reviewers independently read and scored each state's application.  The panels then met in February to finalize their comments and submit scores.  Each state's score is the average of the five independent reviewers' scores.  The finalists will be invited to DC in mid-March to present their proposals to the panel that reviewed their applications in depth during the initial stage, and to engage in Q&A discussions with the reviewers.

For more information, please see the US Department of Education website at the following link: www2.ed.gov.