Program Purpose
Support State plans for and progress on the objectives in four reform areas: teacher effectiveness and inequities in the distribution of highly qualified teachers; rigorous college- and career-ready standards and assessments; targeted, intensive support and effective interventions to turn around struggling schools; and pre-K-through-college-and-career data systems.
Public Benefits
This program will lay the foundation for dramatic, sustained progress in student achievement by supporting States that adopt bold strategies and make systems changes so as to dramatically increase the number and percentage of effective teachers and principals; close the gap in teacher effectiveness that hurts high-need schools and students; and turn around the lowest-achieving schools.
The statute requires that, to receive a grant, a State must have made significant progress in meeting the objectives of the four reform areas. States will be required to submit applications that describe, at a minimum:
(1) the status of the State's progress toward the objectives embedded in the four SFSF assurances;
(2) the strategies the State is employing to help ensure that students from key groups, including economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial or ethnic groups, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency, who have not met the State's proficiency targets continue making progress toward meeting the State's student academic achievement standards;
(3) the achievement and graduation rates of public elementary and secondary school students in the State, and the strategies the State is employing to help ensure that all groups of students continue making progress toward meeting the State's student academic achievement standards;
(4) how the State would use its RTTT funding to improve student academic achievement in the State, including how it would allocate the funds to give priority to high-need local educational agencies; and
(5) a plan for evaluating the State's progress in closing achievement gaps.
Each State receiving an RTTT grant will be required to allocate at least 50 percent of the funds to LEAs in the State based on their relative share of funding under part A of title I of the ESEA for the most recent year.