Their new school year has just started, but New York City public school students have already received an early back-to-school boost. Last month, along with nine other states and the District of Columbia, New York won the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" initiative to reward and support innovation and excellence in the nation's schools. That will mean $700 million in new federal education aid for the state. And New York City -- which has already pioneered many of the school reforms these funds are intended to encourage -- can expect to gain an extra $250 to $300 million. In the process, we've also earned a federal 'seal of approval' for all the progress our schools have made, and the money will help us take our reforms to the next level.
The Race to the Top is designed to improve America's schools by promoting greater competition, instituting stronger accountability, and raising the standards that we expect everyone -- teachers and administrators as well as students -- to meet. Those all happen to be key elements of the game plan we've followed in turning around New York City's public schools during these past eight years. They're the reasons why, for example, we've enthusiastically supported opening dozens of new, academically challenging charter schools, particularly in low-income communities. They're why we've created a "leadership academy" that has successfully recruited and trained an outstanding corps of new school principals. They're also why we've ended the discredited practice of social promotion.
New York City hasn't just set the agenda for school reform statewide; we've also set the pace in producing better results in the classroom. Take, for example, the scores on the highly respected "National Assessment of Education Progress" tests in math and English Language Arts. Since 2002, our 4th- and 8th-graders have improved their scores far more than their peers across the state and throughout the nation have. And in their application for Race to the Top funds, state education leaders noted that progress, and pledged to build on it by instituting many of the reforms that New York City has.
In fact, perhaps just as important as the education aid we're getting from the federal government is the spirit of innovation and cooperation that competing for those funds created among state leaders. In recent months, for example, they passed a law raising the legal cap on charter schools -- a move that both improved the odds of our securing Race to the Top funds and will also give thousands more students new and better school choices. They also passed a commonsense law that will, for the first time, make student progress a major factor in evaluating teachers and principals. Our teachers signed on. In fact, the president of the United Federation of Teachers also went to Washington to speak up vigorously on behalf of the state's Race to the Top bid.
New York State's Race to the Top was a team effort, and investing these new federal funds to improve our schools will be one, too. And in that new leg of the race to the top, the winners are going to be the students heading back to school this month.
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