Race to the Top

The Race to the Top competition was designed to implement the provisions of the ARRA and included several policy priorities that were heavily weighted in selecting winning states, such as articulating the state’s reform agenda and securing buy-in from districts and teachers around this agenda, evaluating teachers and principals based on gains in student achievement, developing and adopting common state standards, turning around the lowest-achieving schools, and ensuring successful conditions for high-performing charters and other innovative schools. In addition, states emphasizing the preparation of students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, were given a competitive preference.