Race to the Top Announcement is a Tremendous Opportunity

$4.35 billion dollars will be awarded to states competing in the Race to the Top (RttT) under the ARRA stimulus funding. The criteria for winning an award are extensive, and according to the draft announcement, not all states are assured an award. After meeting the required criteria and being selected, the amount of each award will be based on the quality and scope of the proposed education reform. It is critically important for states to propose a responsive and extensive education reform plan in order to bring these tremendous, once in a lifetime funds into states for achieving real educational improvement.

Aligned·By·Design is an end-to-end process management tool for education that was designed for solving education’s critical problems. The system is a student and knowledge-centric system focused on achieving learning success in classrooms. It is no surprise that the system enables improvements in the areas underscored in the RttT criteria. Used as a foundational tool for school reform, Aligned·By·Design provides the quality model, optimized process data model, and automation infrastructure needed for systemic reform and winning the RttT competition.

The Aligned·By·Design system can be used with any existing educational materials and yields immediate benefits. It connects all the processes and people, and guides an evolutionary improvement process that can be easily managed without overwhelming human resources. Efficiencies gained can be applied to moving forward at steady and sustainable rates. Key to the effectiveness is working at a new level of detail - discrete content knowledge and skills - providing real-time tracking, alignments, and analysis at this new level of detail for both cross-sectional and longitudinal databases. The cross-sectional database provides feedback to maximize the learning of the “live” students while the longitudinal database provides feedback to optimize the overall system.

The materials below and the links to follow provide the information you need to understand the significant advantage by using Aligned·By·Design as the backbone process automation system for a proposed RttT plan for solving educational problems.

Race to the Top Demands Enterprise System

• Moving to next level of achievement will require automation
  • The work of incorporating new standards and assessments with appropriate review, thoughtful integration and solid support materials on a very ambitious schedule demands automation tools
• Separate nonintegrated stand alone applications can no longer get the job done
  • Automation processes need to be integrated from end-to-end for seamless operation and ultimate efficiency
• Need a system that can utilize existing data 
  • Must be able to import data to enable retirement of outdated systems
• As required, need a system that can integrate with irreplaceable systems
  • Where existing investments and contracts mandate continued use of systems
• System must offer a painless transition
  • Cannot require an overnight change in processes
  • Must enable evolving from current standards, curriculum and assessments to newer designs without massive synchronizations

Race to the Top Winners Need a Reform Vision

• States need to first develop a broad and long term vision of systematically solving the present education problems
• States must then turn that vision into an actionable plan that includes all of the RttT funding requirements
• Finally, States should use the their visionary but realistic plan as the context in preparing the RttT proposal

What visionary solution will States use to apply for Race to the Top funding?

Aligned·By·Design is a Foundation for a Reform Vision and a Tool for Vision Implementation

The following pages provide details of how Aligned·By·Design's features are perfectly applicable to RttT:

• Guiding Principles
• Aligned·By·Design Backbone
• General Requirements
• Selection Criteria
• Optimized Process Data Model
• RttT with Aligned·By·Design

Link to Federal Race To The Top Website: http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop