In the same week that most North Carolina public school students are starting a new school year, a major federal grant offers the state a chance for a new school era.
North Carolina is among 10 winners of federal "Race to the Top" school funding. The money involved - the state gets to spend up to $400 million, all on new projects - is significant. And the goals are ambitious: North Carolina seeks, for example, to increase the statewide high school graduation rate from its current 72 percent to 85 percent in 2016.
Educators' goals, however, often exceed the reality of the actual results. Will Race to the Top (the Obama administration's name for a grant program intended to spur change and innovation) be different?
Much of the state's plan, sensibly, focuses on "low-performing" schools, where test scores and graduation rates lag. To the extent that such schools can be "turned around," the plan offers some ways and means.
For one thing, North Carolina may use Race to the Top money to help promising new teachers afford to take jobs in poor schools. A school might also hire a "graduation coach" to work with students likely to drop out. Both measures are worth a try, and the grant money allows hard-pressed education budgets to stretch in new directions.
The legislature, traditionally cool to charter schools, bent in the pro-charter Obama administration's direction in order to win funding, although not far enough for charter advocates. The case for these schools would be stronger, in North Carolina, if their student bodies were less racially distinct - too many are predominantly white or black. But now, along with other steps the state promises to take, the case for converting failing schools to charters (or "charter-lites," if you like) will get a welcome Race to the Top test.
