School Districts | Innovative Leadership
Big congratulations are in order for the Race to the Top District Competition’s 16 winners, who were announced yesterday. The winners spanned the great diversity of school districts nationwide – from the country’s fourth biggest district in South Florida (Miami-Dade County Public Schools) to a consortium of 24 largely rural districts in Kentucky (Green River Regional Education Cooperative) and from a charter management organization based in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley (IDEA Public Schools) to a consortium of districts bordering Washington’s Puget Sound (Puget Sound Educational Service District).
While there is still a lot to learn about the distinct approach each of these districts will take to implementing personalized learning environments, we are encouraged by the reviewers’ comments, which suggest that a majority of the winners have outlined a blended learning component in their plans.
A well-designed blended program benefits both the student and the teacher. Students have the opportunity to learn at their own pace using adaptive, digital content. Teachers have the ability to use data from digital curriculum and assessments to efficiently evaluate students’ performance, differentiate small group instruction. and focus on higher-order skills. We’re already seeing blended learning in action in many schools and we know it offers a sustainable strategy to delivering personalized learning over time.
While we know there were many high quality applications from among the 371 districts, congratulations again to the sixteen winners:
- Carson City School District in Nevada
- Charleston County School District in South Carolina
- Galt Joint Union School District in California
- Green River Regional Educational Cooperative in Kentucky
- Guilford County Schools in North Carolina
- Harmony Science Academy (Harmony Public Schools) in Texas
- IDEA Public Schools in Texas
- Iredell-Statesville Schools in North Carolina
- KIPP DC in Washington, DC
- Lindsay Unified School District in California
- Metropolitan School District of Warren Township in Indiana
- Middletown City School District in New York
- New Haven Unified School District in California
- Puget Sound Educational Service District in Washington
- School Board of Miami-Dade County in Florida
- St. Vrain Valley Schools in Colorado
