Bennet Statement on New Race to the Top Opportunity for Colorado

Washington, DC – Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, a former superintendent of Denver Public Schools, today released a statement following the announcement that the current round of Race to the Top will include a new opportunity for Colorado to win resources, along with a competition for early childhood education.

“Colorado has led the country in groundbreaking education reforms. As was widely known throughout the education reform community, our state deserved to win an earlier Race to the Top round.  We will now have the opportunity to ultimately win some Race to the Top resources to implement our cutting edge reforms. I am happy to provide any assistance I can to help ensure Colorado’s application is successful.

“Race to the Top is a great model demonstrating how the federal government can spur innovation and reform, which is desperately needed to improve our public education system. It can spur innovation by creating opportunities for people on the ground to try new approaches. The real work of reforming our schools must be done at the state and local levels and Race to the Top incentivizes dynamic new solutions to old problems, raise their standards and can lead to actually fixing the very schools that have persistently failed students. 

“A round for early childhood education, which is key to a student’s success in school, can make a tremendous difference. I trust that the scoring system will be improved under this competition and other Race to the Top competitions moving forward. If that is the case, I will continue to fight to ensure that there are additional rounds of Race to the Top moving forward.”

Bennet is a member of the extended negotiation table currently crafting a bill to fix No Child Left Behind.  He has cosponsored a bill to authorize Race to the Top as a permanent program.