Race to the Top Scopes of Work - An Analysis of Tennessee Districts Plans for Using Local Race to the Top Funds | Page 2

Taking Note

(FAQ) document on TDOE’s website. Additionally, since many districts asked what services
the state would provide with its share of RTTT
funds, the state released a list of services it
would provide to districts, with the most detail
being about the services provided by Battelle
for Kids (the largest professional development
contract the state was funding with Race to the
Top).
Initial scopes of work were due to TDOE on
Friday, May 21, 2010. On Saturday, May 22,
staff members from the Governor’s Office and
SCORE came together to analyze these scopes
of work. The staff noted several trends including:
(1) scope of work activities were concentrated
in several key areas including formative assessments, instructional coaches, leadership
training, and teacher professional development;
(2) many activities lacked sufficient detail to
determine their likely effectiveness; and (3)
the performance targets attached to individual
activities were often vague. At the conclusion
of its review, the team produced a memo summarizing its findings, which was shared with the
Commissioner of Education on Monday, May
24, 2010.
Throughout the week of May 24, the Commissioner and an appointed Scope of Work
Review Committee reviewed each scope of
work. Serving on this committee were five
senior representatives from TDOE, two representatives from the Governor’s Office, and two
representatives from SCORE. The FSC director
and RTTT consultant from each region j ointly
presented the activities from each district’s
scope of work in their region to the Review
Committee and answered any questions the
Committee had. While the Committee did not
have a formal rubric on which to assess scopes
of work, the Committee used the FAQ document as a guide.
On June 3, 2010, the Review Committee
provided school districts two types of formal
feedback. First, all districts received a memo
outlining common challenges across all scopes
of work, including the need for more detailed
performance targets and the need to provide
more detail around specific scope of work activities (e.g., pacing guides, leadership training).
Second, each district received comments on
their individual scope of work. These comments
had been recorded by the secretary of the
Review Committee during the review of each
district’s scope of work and tended to average
4-8 key points per district.
After this feedback was returned to districts, FSC directors and RTTT consultants
met with districts to review comments and
SCORE

September 2010

assist districts with revising their scopes of
work. Revised scopes of work were submitted
to TDOE on Monday, June 14. During the week
that followed, the Review Committee carefully
reviewed each scope of work. The Commissioner then again reviewed each scope of work
before making final approvals. Final scopes of
work were submitted to the U.S. Department
of Education on June 28 and were approved by
the U.S. Department on July 28.

Analysis
School districts allocated a total of
$250,306,937 over four years in their
scopes of work, just slightly more than the
$250,301,269 officially budgeted for local districts under the RTTT grant (several districts

The largest amount
of funding was budgeted
to support the “standards
and assessments” and
“great teachers and
leaders” priorities.
slightly over-budgeted funds). This spending
is slightly frontloaded, with districts allocating
28.8% of funds in Year 1, 26.9% of funds in
Year 2, 23.4% of funds in Year 3, and 20.9%
of funds in Year 4.
RTTT focuses on four key assurance areas:
(1) standards and assessments (2) using data
to improve instruction (3) great teacher and
leaders and (4) turning around low-performing
schools. Districts indicated which of the four
RTTT assurances each activity in their scope of
work addressed. Districts listed multiple assurances for the majority of activities. The greatest
number of activities and the largest amount of
funding was budgeted to support the “standards and assessments” and “great teachers
and leaders” priorities. Specifically, 57.5% of
activities and 55.4% of funds were allocated
for activities focused on “recruiting, developing,
rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and
principals,” and 46.3% of activities and 35.2%
of funds were allocated to assist with the implementation of “standards and assessments that
prepare students to succeed in college and the
workplace.” There was also moderate attention
given to the RTTT assurance around “building data systems to improve instruction,” with
28.9% of activities and 21.0% of all budget
items being allocated to this priority. The least
attention was given to the assurance focused

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on “turning around low performing schools”
with 9.2% of activities and 24.0% of funds
being allocated to these activities. This final
finding was particularly interesting in that while
few activities were focused on low-performing
schools, the activities that were planned for this
purpose were resource intensive.
A separate analysis conducted by SCORE
that selected only the one RTTT assurance
that best described each activity found similar
results. This analysis found that 43.4% of activities and 30.5% of funds were best categorized
as focusing on standards and assessments,
18.5% of activities and 15.8% of funds on
using data to improve instruction, 33.9% of
activities and 35.3% of funds on great teachers
and leaders, and 3.5% of activities and 15.9%
of funds on turning around low-performing
schools.
SCORE also analyzed how systems were
planning to spend their local RTTT funds at
a more granular level by labeling each activity
using a detailed coding system. This analysis
found that nearly one third (32.1%) of funds
was allocated to personnel, another third
(32.0%) to training and professional development, and the final third (33.4%) to other
miscellaneous activities.2
Personnel expenditures included new
hires as well as extended contracts for current employees and totaled $80,237,769 over
four years. Specifically, 24 districts allocated
$34,761,239 for personnel to support at-risk
schools and students, including positions such
as graduation coaches and intervention specialists. Additionally, many districts allocated
funds for personnel to support educator professional growth. Specifically, 41 districts set
aside $20,927,291 for instructional coaches
and 36 districts set aside $13,927,249 for
data coaches. Ten districts allocated a total of
$2,293,074 for new personnel to carry out the
state’s forthcoming teacher evaluation system.
A third of local RTTT funds totaling
$80,116,581 were set aside for training and
professional development. A total of 65 districts allocated $20,955,399 for professional
development related to implementing higher
academic standards; 35 districts allocated
$6,011,464 for teacher induction or mentoring programs for novice and low-performing
teachers; 25 districts allocated $2,025,885
for training on the new teacher evaluation system; and 15 districts allocated $3,832,991
for developing and implementing professional
learning communities. School leadership
training programs also received significant
attention, with 49 districts budgeting a total
www.tnscore.org