The federal Department of Education released criteria Monday for private districts or groups of districts to compete for the last $400 million in Race to the Top-District dollars. Count Los Angeles Unified in the contest – if Superintendent John Deasy can persuade United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher to sign the application (perhaps a big "if").

LAUSD would be eligible for the maximum $twoscore million grant – 10 percentage of the total – if it's selected in December.

California was close out of the money in three previous rounds, although it was a finalist in Circular 2 and districts leading the effort were in line for as much as $49 million in Round three. Only Gov. Jerry Brown refused to sign the application, saying that doing so would involve statewide commitments to adopting instructor evaluations linked to student test scores that the state wasn't able or willing to make.

Superintendent John Deasy

John Deasy

That frustrated Deasy and six other superintendents in the California Office to Reform Education, a district collaborative created to apply to Race to the Top. Although the new district competition is open to all districts nationwide, LAUSD and the other CORE districts should have a leg upwards because they're in states denied the money. Rick Miller, executive managing director of Cadre, said that the districts in the collaborative are discussing whether to utilize together, to improve their chances.

Deasy, however, said that LAUSD plans to submit its ain and has started working on it. The district must apply by tardily October and let the feds know of its intent past the end of August.

Some of Deasy's initiatives are in sync with reforms that U.Due south. Secretarial assistant of Didactics Arne Duncan and the Obama administration have been pushing, and so could help boost the application's chances. These include a school-based budgeting experiment, giving school site administrators more authority over funding decisions;  the expansion of Pilot and Local Initiative Schools, which invite teams of teachers, parents, and community partners to pattern and operate schools; and a comprehensive instructor evaluation organisation that the district is piloting and negotiating with the teachers spousal relationship (by court order, it must include, to some degree, the utilise of land standardized tests as a measure out of educatee progress).

The signature of the head of the local wedlock must be included with the application for this competition, and that could prove the hardest sell. Fletcher said that UTLA has been skeptical of the Race to the Top model at the state level, which has involved a large commitment in dollars in return for a relatively small federal grant over five years. And the primary measurement of achievement under the program has been standardized tests.

A district's prior tape of success and "weather for reform" will count for about 25 percent of the points of the application. A district'southward vision of reform will count for xx percent; a plan for preparing students for college and careers will count for some other twenty pct. In May, the LAUSD school lath adopted the policy of requiring all graduates to successfully complete the 15 courses required for admission to a four-year country school, starting with the class of 2016. That requirement could assistance narrow the accomplishment gap for students who are interested in higher, but doesn't provide avenues and choices for those who aren't.

A delivery to ameliorate a district'due south programme over time and sustain it with funding – problematic for whatsoever district in California – comprises about an additional twenty percent of the points.

The money is to be used to "personalize learning," which is vaguely divers as accelerating student accomplishment and deepening pupil learning to meet needs of individual students. Using technology and building customs partnerships may be function of it, equally may increasing admission to effective teachers.

Deasy wouldn't say what LAUSD plans to do with the coin – that'south a competitive secret – other than to say the district will prepare a "highly competitive, excellent proposal." Fletcher said that he and Deasy had not discussed a proposal in whatsoever item merely that "it's important for UTLA to exist open up to the chat. We're always willing to talk."

To go more reports like this one, click here to sign upwards for EdSource's no-cost daily email on latest developments in pedagogy.