www.dadeinfo.com

$400 million is headed to classrooms throughout Georgia. School systems had to apply for for "Race To The Top" funds, but only one district in the NewsChannel 9 viewing area did so.

Several systems told us they were not "invited" to apply or receive the funds. But the governor's office says that every single district was eligible and able to apply. After hearing two conflicting stories, we took the issue to those it affected most, the parents.

Denni Thomas says, "We need it, our children can't get what they need and if there is money there we should be able to take it."

Thomas helps one of her children study Thursday afternoon. She is one of many parents who were surprised to learn that Catoosa County did not apply for the millions of dollars of "Race To The Top" funding.

Julie Wade says, "I'm hoping there is a good reason why that if we weren't offered it I would like to know why we weren't offered it and why we were skipped over on this."

But Catoosa isn't alone, Dade County was actually the only district in our area to get the money. We called the other nearby systems to find out why they didn't apply.

Walker County said, "The details of participation at that time were incomplete and the value to Walker County School's current improvement efforts in both student achievement and graduation rate were unknown."

Murray said they didn't know they were invited, and we first got a similar response from Catoosa County on Wednesday, that "They were not invited to participate in the initial application because the system did not have any schools meeting the criteria for "persistently low achieving" schools."

We took those reasons to the Governor's office. Director of Communications Bert Brantley says, "I don't know why there would be any confusion as to who was invited, we certainly cast that net wide, to all systems."

Brantley told us every school was invited during a meeting last fall with the governor, then there was a follow up web session for all superintendents.

When we told that response to Catoosa, they sent us a revised statement, saying they did not apply because "The benchmarks in the application were very vague, and since we don't have low performing schools, we did not pursue applying for the funding."

But Brantley says school's performance was just one aspect of the application. "That in and of itself didn't qualify or disqualify any district, any district could have signed up."

We also called both Chattooga and Whitfield Counties to find out why they didn't apply, but we never heard back. 26 counties throughout the state are participating in Georgia's Race to the Top, and the 400 million dollars will be distributed by need among those districts.

We don't know yet exactly how much money Dade County will get. But, we do know that half of the total will go toward state wide programs. If the money was divided equally among the participating counties, each would get about 7 million dollars. Keep in mind that money can only be used for certain projects.

Dade County did get accepted into the program during the second round, after they received other national funding that the Governor's Office says matched well with their program.

Brantley says they are happy with the number of counties participating. He says they only wanted the school systems that were truly excited about their principles and wanted to be a part of Race To The Top.

The money -- about $200 million -- is being divvied based on the percent of economically disadvantaged students in each district, said Matt Cardoza, spokesman for the state Department of Education.

"The more of those students you have the more money you receive," he said.

Well the money has been announced and we are getting $341,455. Seems it was based not just on school performance but how many poor families you have.
http://www.ajc.com/news/race-to-top-mon ... e=rss_news