Morning Announcements: June 1, 2011

States are thinking twice about the new race to the top cash, according to Education Week. “The $200 million pot has drawn controversy in part because four of the states have new governors who had nothing to do with their states’ original Race to the Top proposals: California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina…The grants are a sliver of what they were in the first two rounds, when awards started at $75 million for the smallest winners, such as Hawaii, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia, and ranged up to $700 million for the largest, Florida and New York. For this third round, California, the largest state, stands to gain only up to $50 million. Smaller states such as Colorado could get closer to $10 million.”

eSchoolNews covers a recently releases policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education: “A Time for Deeper Learning” argues that the United States has a two-tier system of education, where affluent students have more of an opportunity to achieve deeper learning, whereas low-income students learn only basic skills and knowledge. Results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlight the fact that American students lag behind their international peers in using their knowledge to solve reading, math, and science problems.”