DADE DATASchool / teacher ratio / studentsDade Elementary / 1:16 / 937Davis Elementary / 1:14 / 345Dade Middle / 1:15 / 594Dade High / 1:17 / 816Source: Georgia Department of Education Report Card 2009
Much of Dade County’s share of federal Race to the Top money will help pay for two workers who will oversee data analysis and performance improvements, officials said.
Georgia’s share of Race to the Top money is $400 million. Dade County will get $1.3 million over four years to fund the two posts. Any money left over will pay for professional development and supporting materials and supplies, county schools Superintendent Patty Priest said.
State officials recently reallocated funding so the smallest systems got at least $1.3 million, a major boost from Dade’s original $341,000.
“We’re looking to hire someone that would do curriculum and instruction kinds of things, and another person would be involved in the teacher and leader evaluation system, as well as data analysis, which would be the value-added [measure of teachers’ effectiveness],” Priest said.
She said the curriculum specialist will guide improvements at all four schools and work with a three-year, $2.4 million federal school improvement grant for Dade County High School. It was named a “lowest-performing school” under Race to the Top guidelines.
Dade will put an additional $100,000 of Race to the Top funding toward the merit-based pay system, Priest said. All 26 participating systems must commit 30 percent of their Race to the Top funds toward such a system, state officials said.
The Atlanta, Dade, Gwinnett and Peach school districts are piloting a teacher-effectiveness measure that is intended to create a system for measuring student gains from one year to the next – a measure also known as “value-added,” officials said. The program eventually will roll out statewide.
Dade County was one of three districts added to the 23 school systems competing in the first-round Race to the Top application because of its demographics and to align those systems’ federal school improvement grants with Race to the Top reforms, state officials said.
To participate, systems must target at least one of four main Race to the Top objectives: standards and assessments; teacher and leader effectiveness; data collection for student and program tracking; or turnaround of low-achieving schools.
Federal approval of systems’ plans could come as soon as Friday, Georgia state Department of Education Implementation Director Teresa MacCartney said.
“We’re waiting for feedback from the U.S. Department of Education, and, as soon as we have our Race to the Top allocation approved, our state board would approve the allocations for the local school districts and we would start working,” MacCartney said.
She said there should be few problems with most systems’ plans.
“I’m sure out of 26 scopes of work, there’ll be something we’ll have to go back in there and tweak,” she said, but state officials don’t expect delays.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.