Kudos to Duncan and the Obama administration:

School districts will be able to submit proposals for innovative educational programs this year to compete for federal grants of up to $25 million under a new national contest, part of the three-year-old Race to the Topprogram. Rules for the competition were to be announced on Tuesday by the Department of Education.

Like the department's state-level competition for federal grants that preceded it, the program will require systems for measuring student progress and assessing teachers and administrators and will target low-income communities. Under the department's rules, the schools included in each application must have at least 40 percent of students qualify for federally subsidized school lunches.

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May 22, 2012