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The Obama administration is announcing major progress this week as its signature education policy, the Race to the Peak competition, winds down and the coin runs out.

Many states that won a federal grant in the $4 billion plan that is now inbound its fourth twelvemonth have followed through on promises to prefer the Common Core State Standards and launch new instructor evaluations along with an assortment of other policies, including opening new charter schools, grooming teachers, and offering more than Avant-garde Placement classes. Others are yet working on information technology.

Did Race to the Top work?
President Barack Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan (Photo by Obama-Biden Transition Project)

And so is Race to the Acme a win? Or is information technology too soon to tell? (And is the information too messy to provide an respond?) A White House report released Tuesday points to ascension graduation rates and rising scores on the National Cess of Educational Progress (NAEP) as bear witness:

"At 80 per centum, the nation'southward high school graduation rate is the highest in American history, cheers to comprehensive, state-led efforts inspired in part past Race to the Top. In add-on, pupil test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are the highest since the test was start given 20 years ago."

Education data is full of variables that bedevil reformers hoping to claim their ideas work, all the same. Thus the heated debates over charter schools, small-scale form sizes, desegregation, school closings and other controversial strategies meant to improve pupil operation. In the case of charter schools, for case, critics inquire if it's actually the charters that cause students to improve their operation, or other factors — like more than involved parents. It's often hard to tell.

On a conference telephone call with reporters today, one of the kickoff questions put to Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Education Secretarial assistant Arne Duncan was whether it was really fair to claim Race to the Top was backside the rising test scores and failing number of dropouts nationally. (Another report out this calendar week likewise argues the grant competition worked, based partly on the fact that low-achieving schools in many Race to the Superlative states are making significant gains.)

The Washington Post reporter who asked the question pointed out that the NAEP increases have been modest and incremental, and expert opinion that a rise in graduation rates is probably more continued to a weak economy and fears among potential dropouts that they won't find piece of work without a diploma.

"The point is that by holding students, schools and the whole system accountable, nosotros're seeing progress" in the Race to the Summit states, Muñoz responded.

Duncan was more direct:

"We're not satisfied, but nosotros're absolutely pleased that graduation rates are at an all time loftier. We think [Race to the Top] resources and opportunities contributed to that," he said, adding that "the real credit should become to teachers and principals … and to students who are working really, actually difficult."

(This post has been updated from an earlier version.)

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Sarah Garland oversees editorial planning and budgeting, edits Chiliad-12 stories and manages editorial partnerships with other news outlets. She has worked at Hechinger since 2010, and earlier that wrote about...