Idaho to try again for federal education money

BOISE (AP) - Idaho has two months to improve its campaign for new federal education money and take another stab at the Obama administration's highly competitive grant competition.

The U.S. Department of Education's "Race to the Top" fund still has more than $3 billion in grants for school reform after awarding Tennessee and Delaware $600 million during the first round of the contest.

Idaho scored 331 out of a possible 500 points and was ranked 28 out of 41 states and the District of Columbia. The applications were read and scored by panels of five peer reviewers.

Idaho missed its first shot at the grant money because it doesn't have a longitudinal data system for tracking student achievement.

and needs to better define the state's process for intervening with persistently low-achieving schools, a review of the state's scores shows.

The state was also criticized for lack of school district participation in the grant.

About half of Idaho's 115 school districts signed on, which means the education reforms funded with the grant money would have reached about 40 percent of the total 278,600 Idaho students in kindergarten through eighth grades.

The state Department required three signatures from each school district that wanted to participate, including the school superintendent, the school board president and the leader of the local teacher's union.

This requirement may have limited more widespread support for Idaho's application, according to reviewers.

"We wanted to make sure districts would be able to implement it if they signed on," said state Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath. "I think one thing we learned is we may not need all three signatures."

Idaho sought $120 million for public schools, which face historic cuts in the coming year, and proposed spending a large portion of the money on a pilot program to pay teachers based on performance. There was also money for a system to better track student achievement and boost opportunities for high school juniors and seniors to earn college credit.

During the second round, Idaho will be able to apply for up to $75 million in grant money.