Smithtown District Receives $40k in Race to Top Money From State

The Smithtown Central School District will receive $40,081 in state "Race to the Top" funds.

"We have not made any decisions yet, but I believe this funding coming to Smithtown will go towards teacher training and staff development," said Steven Epstein, budget and capital projects coordinator for Smithtown schools.

Long Island is receiving 2.3 percent ($8 million) of the $348.3 million allotted by the state.

Brentwood will receive the most - $867,637 - in Suffolk County, while Freeport leads Nassau by getting $348,602.

According to state education officials, districts will be able to compete for grants from the pool of $133.6 million. This money will most likely go towards districts with more serious financial issues compared to Smithtown.

New York, California and Texas are grouped into Category 1 of the U.S. Department of Education's system for allocating Race to the Top funds, meaning those states receive between $350-700 million.

In August, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that 10 applicants won grants in the second phase of the Race to the Top competition. Along with Phase 1 winners Delaware and Tennessee, 11 states and the District of Columbia were awarded money in the Obama Administration's education reform program that will directly impact 13.6 million students, and 980,000 teachers in 25,000 schools.

The 10 winning Phase 2 applications were: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

"These states show what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children," said Duncan in a statement from the U.S. Government. "Every state that applied showed a tremendous amount of leadership and a bold commitment to education reform. The creativity and innovation in each of these applications is breathtaking," Duncan continued. "We set a high bar and these states met the challenge."

The Race to the Top program includes $4 billion for statewide reform grants and $350 million to support states working together to improve the quality of their assessments, which the Department awarded this week. The Race to the Top state competition is designed to reward states that are leading the way in comprehensive, coherent, statewide education reform across four key areas:

• Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace;
• Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals how to improve instruction;
• Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
• Turning around their lowest-performing schools.