Race to the Top. Georgia Report. Year 2: School Year 2011-2012. [State-Specific Summary Report]
Author: Department of Education (ED)
Date: 2013-02-01
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Academic Standards,Accountability,Achievement Gap,Administrator Effectiveness,Alignment (Education),Budgets,Career Readiness,Charter Schools,College Readiness,Core Curriculum,Data,Educational Assessment,Educational Change,Educational Improvement,Elementary Secondary Education,Federal Legislation,Formative Evaluation,Grants,Higher Education,Language Arts,Leadership Effectiveness,Literacy,Low Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Measurement Objectives,Models,Outcomes of Education,Partnerships in Education,Poverty,Principals,Professional Development,Program Effectiveness,Program Implementation,School Districts,School Effectiveness,School Turnaround,State Government,State Standards,STEM Education,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Evaluation

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Georgia's Year 2 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2011 through September 2012. During Year 2, Georgia had a range of accomplishments across Race to the Top education reform areas. For example, Georgia completed two additional rounds of the Innovation Fund competitive grant program, awarding a total of 24 grants in Years 1 and 2. The State remains optimistic about the initiative and views the Innovation Fund as a way to stimulate new thinking about competitive grant funds for innovative education in Georgia. The Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) also provided all local educational agencies (LEAs) with a variety of resources (e.g., webinars, newsletters, and curriculum frameworks), professional development, and face-to-face support from English language arts (ELA) and mathematics specialists that will help them implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), referred to as the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards (CCGPS) in Georgia, in school year (SY) 2012-2013. Additionally, in moving forward with new and high-quality assessments, the State is developing a formative assessment toolkit. To ensure reliability, Georgia has field tested 800 assessment items using a representative sample of schools. Georgia experienced significant challenges related to implementation of its educator evaluation system in Year 2 of its Race to the Top grant. The Department is concerned about the overall strategic planning, evaluation, and project management for that system, which include decisions regarding the quality of the tools and measures used during the educator evaluation pilot and the scalability of the supports the State offered to participating LEAs. During Year 3, Georgia plans to develop rigorous routines and processes to better manage its Race to the Top projects and to more effectively monitor and assess participating LEAs' progress and quality of implementation. The State will also work with a consulting firm to enhance its communications plan to better articulate the various components of its Race to the Top initiative and how these components align. A glossary is included. (Contains 9 footnotes.) [For &quot;Race to the Top. Georgia Report. Year 1: School Year 2010-2011. [State-Specific Summary Report],&quot; see ED529314.]