Only time will tell who wins the $4 billion Race to the Top

After the first year, a Washing- ton assessment of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant program gives Ohio high marks on its participation.

States and individual school districts had to compete for extra federal funding aimed at improving student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving high school graduation rates and better preparing students for success in college and careers.

That’s a tall order, and it will be years before the success of the program can be measured. And even then, there will likely be debate, just as there is now over the Bush-era No Chid Left Behind initiative.

Nonetheless, it appears that Race to the Top has provided some common ground for the administration of Barack Obama in Washington and that of Republican Gov. John R. Kasich in Ohio.

Ohio had to make some adjustments in its plan after Kasich replaced Democrat Ted Strickland as governor and put his own stamp on the Department of Education, as ever governor does.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that the U.S. Department of Education did not rank the 11 states and District of Columbia on how they were meeting goals for improving student and teacher performance. But the assessments and comments of federal education officials suggest Ohio and Massachusetts are at the top.

“Ohio is in really good shape,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told The Dispatch. “Our team is encouraged by the commitment and by the progress. There’s still a long way to go, but there’s been a good working relationship.”

Locally, there have been some dropouts from the program. When Race grants were announced in 2010, ten public school districts in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties were listed. The Department of Education now lists only six: Crestview, Canfield, Jackson-Milton, Sebring, Western Reserve and Brookfield.

Looking ahead

Michael Sawyers, deputy superintendent at the Ohio Department of Education, told The Dispatch that the federal grant is helping educators prepare for new student curriculum and assessments starting in 2014. That is when the state will shift from a system that requires minimum competency from students to one that demands that they graduate from high school ready for college or a career.

That is an admirable goal, and one that will likely prove harder to reach than it sounds.

We hope every district — not just those involved in Race to the Top — meet or exceed those benchmarks.

But our pessimistic side can’t help but recall a goal that was established in the 1990s that called for the Youngstown City School District to graduate every student by the year 2000. Or the Fourth Grade Guarantee launched under Gov. Bob Taft. It called for every student to be proficient in reading by the end of the fourth grade — or be held back for a year. Even though every teacher and every principal and every superintendent in the state knew that a kindergarten student entering in the fall of 1996 was going to be expected to read at a fourth grade level by the spring of 2001, the guarantee wasn’t honored.

We think every school district would have been wise to apply for Race funding and to strive toward reaching its goals. And we’re encouraged that both the Obama and Kasich administrations seem to think Ohio is getting its money’s worth. But we’ll reserve judgment until the data is in.