Race to the Top Hearings in Boston

As part of a series of hearings on Race to the Top funding, the Department of Education is holding hearings in Boston on November 12 and 13. This is regarding the second batch of RTTT funding, the assessment portion which would, according the notice, "provide for approximately $350 million in grants...for the development of common, high-quality assessments aligned with an applicant consortium's common set of K-12 standards that are internationally benchmarked and that build toward college and career readiness by the time of high school completion."

At least half the money awarded to winning states needs to go to what the DoE is calling "local educational agencies" (what would be districts if it did not specifically include charter schools), based on their relative shares of funding under Title 1.

You can find the issues they'll be addressing here in the Federal Register. It looks like the MCAS would need a major overhaul to qualify. (more on that later)

If you're interested in attending or speaking, you can find out what you need to do here.
You can also send in written testimony by December 5 to:

Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
Attention: Race to the Top Assessment Program -Public Input Meetings
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW, room 3E108
Washington, D.C. 20202

or racetothetop.assessmentinput@ed.gov Subject line :"Race to the Top Assessment Program"