By Mariel S. Clark
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — New York won $700 million in federal education grants when the US Department of Education's Race to the Top program winners were announced Tuesday.
The state, along with eight others and Washington D.C., won a share of $3.4 billion in funding from the program which was started by the Obama Administration in July of 2009 as a way to reward improvements in public schools.
The New York City school system, which has two-thirds of the state's needy children and 40 percent of its teachers, could receive $300 million from the Race to the Top program, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a press conference.
The money would be used to make technological advances, improve teaching, turn around the lowest performing schools and extend the school day, according to the Daily News.
"This is a critical victory for the city, the children of the city and hardworking families who depend on the education system," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said at a press conference.
New York, which placed second behind Massachusetts, will get the funds over a four-year period.
Gov. David Paterson said he spoke to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan three times on Tuesday to make sure the state would receive the full $700 million it applied for.
"I spoke to him so much you would have thought we'd lost," Paterson joked at the press conference.
The funds will be used to develop a system to track student progress and roll out a new statewide curriculum, the Daily News reported.
The program focused on reform in four areas, including improving systems that measure academic standards, turning around low-performing schools, recruiting and rewarding good teachers and adopting standards that properly prepare students for college.
New York missed out on the first round of the program, but has since made improvements in the school system including using student test scores to evaluate teachers.
In May, state legislators passed a bill that more than doubled the number of charter schools from 200 to 460 in an attempt to increase New York's chances of winning Race to the Top.
These changes were rewarded by the program and helped the state both advance to the round of finalists announced in July and ultimately win the funds.
Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island also won funds.
"Every state that applied showed a tremendous amount of leadership and a bold commitment to education reform. The creativity and innovation in each of these applications is breathtaking," US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a statement. "We set a high bar and these states met the challenge."
