The Milton School Committee recently discussed “Race to the Top” funding. Milton declined to apply. Ms. Kelly expressed her disappointment at this. “Race to the Top” is a federal initiative to award school districts funding however, and teacher’s unions  take exception to tying pay to student performance on tests among other issues. Participation “required 3 signatures” according to the school officials who attended a session held for school districts, the three signatures being the school committee, the school administration, and the local union. Two other issues of note: Milton would have qualified for just over $20,000 per year (funding levels were tied to Title 1 status) and, according to Mr. Huban who attended the session, there was a significant lack of detail on the process and program. He agreed with someone he overheard compare it to a timeshare pitch.

The Globe article discusses how different south shore towns have responded to the program. Generally, it appears that towns with larger Title 1 (Title I (“Title One”) of the Eduction Act is a set of programs set up by the United States Department of Education to distribute funding to schools and school districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families.) populations applied. You can find the story here.