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District is finalist for Gates grant

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN

sackerman@tampatrib.com

Published: September 10, 2009

TAMPA - The Hillsborough County school district is in line for a grant that could top $100 million and fund a program school officials hope would ensure almost every student in America graduates high school.

Hillsborough is one of five nationwide finalists for the grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Winners will be announced in mid-November. The other finalists include Pittsburgh; Memphis, Tenn.; Omaha, Neb.; and a group of charter schools in Los Angeles.

"We believe we have it," Hillsborough schools Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said this week.

If so, it would be "the largest grant ever given to a public school district," she said.

The district signed off last week on a memorandum of understanding with the Seattle-based foundation - the last step before final confirmation, Elia said. Foundation spokesman Chris Williams said it is possible all five finalists will receive money from the Empowering Effective Teachers grant, but award amounts have not been set.

The Gates Foundation has committed to spending $500 million in the next few years to study how teaching skills relate to student achievement.

Even if Hillsborough doesn't win the full $100 million, it likely will receive some money, Williams said. Hillsborough's plan would change how teachers are evaluated and receive incentive pay and create an intensive teacher mentoring program.

"I think they're going to get some of that money," said state Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, the chairman of the legislative Education Policy Council whose district includes parts of northern Hillsborough. Weatherford wrote a letter supporting the district and took part in focus group meetings held by the district and an out-of-state consulting firm paid for by the foundation.

The foundation's ultimate goal is to produce more effective teachers while raising national high school graduation rates from the current average of 71 percent to 90 percent. The state puts Florida's graduation rate at 71 percent, though other figures put it as low as 57.7 percent. Hillsborough reported an 80 percent graduation rate in its 2008 annual report.

Hillsborough's proposal will cost $100 million over the first seven years and $32 million a year to sustain after the grant ends, Elia said.

Money already budgeted for staff development could fund the program. This year's roughly $3 billion budget includes staff development dollars, including $8.7 million for the state-mandated Merit Award Program, which rewards teachers based on students' academic successes.

Those dollars could be shifted to a new incentive program that ties pay increases to student achievement but moves beyond test scores, Elia said.

The district cannot replace MAP, though, and teachers would have the option of remaining in that program, Elia said.

If the new incentive program proves superior to the state's, though, Elia said she would ask the Legislature to adopt it or let the district use it in place of MAP.

The district's proposal also calls for a new teacher mentoring and evaluation system that would take 200 to 300 teachers with a proven track record of high-achieving students out of the classroom and make them mentors to new teachers. Those mentors would help evaluate teachers - a process now done solely by principals.

The grant would help hire replacements for those mentors, who would return to the classroom in two to three years while others serve as mentors.

Having Hillsborough, the eighth-largest school district in the nation with an estimated 189,000 students, win such a significant grant would have a monumental impact, said Bruce A. Jones, director of the David Anchin Center and associate dean of research at the University of South Florida's College of Education.

The prestigious grant would bring a tremendous amount of national visibility to the district, allowing Hillsborough to leverage those dollars into even more money and attract a larger pool of teacher candidates, Jones said.

Robin Chait, associate director for teacher quality at the Center for American Progress in Washington, said the impact of such a grant could be huge.

"To go beyond test scores, that's really important," she said.

"If we could find what are the essential qualities ... that could help in the hiring and recruiting of teachers."

Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144.

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