The Race to the Top is a grant provided to support the new approaches to improving schools by the American and Reinvestment Act of 2009. They take the form of competitive grants to reward and encourage states to create education environments based on innovation and reformation.

Both the governor of Georgia and the school superintendents have a responsibility towards ensuring that these funds meet their purpose. Both Governor Nathan Deal and state school superintendent John Barge were not at the helm when the vision for Georgia was not being created but are vital in seeing to it that it is achieved. The governor being the chief executive of the state of Georgia is responsible for ensuring the financial allocation aimed at this initiative are submitted in full and in time. The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) which is a representative of the governor in this project monitors and outlines the yearly plans of implementation. GOSA is responsible for meriting the different factors in education that should be rewarded in various capacities that relate to the initiative. The state superintendent has administrative duties when it comes to the implementation of the fund. They are answered to by the school superintendents who are the administrators of the schools. The state superintendent has an advisory role on the rewarding and use of the funds by various individuals and agencies.

Common Core Georgia Performance Standards (CCGPS) was adopted by Georgia in July 2010. The governor is of the view that the initiative creates a better purchasing power since the similarity in curriculum between many states will lead to instructional materials and textbooks being developed for one target hence lower prices. He feels the initiative relieves the taxpayers on education and hence improved saving and subsequently investment by the taxpayers. The standards are useful to the school state superintendent in that his work with other stakeholders towards achieving the goals are facilitated by the uniform and clearly provided guidelines. Since it is in line with the standards of the other states, the superintendent can easily evaluate progress and performance of the strategies of implementation in Georgia by comparing them with the successful states.

The initiative has faced resistance from stakeholders holding the opinion that the more federal control is likely to harm education in Georgia. Some feel that the common core was created by federal state of Georgia for the benefits of the government and not the education sector. The initiative however is in all other states and that school of thought remains false. Some feel the standards will be lowered especially in mathematics where Georgia has always lagged behind thus creating the resistance. It has been agreed that through the initiative, no state is to lower the standards. Some teachers have been reluctant as they feel common core standards tell them how to teach which is not factual.

The competitive nature of the initiative may leave other students frustrated and not meet the intended student based learning. Ascertaining the student and institution for rewards is does not have an all-inclusive mechanism. Different institutions have different resources. Making them compete on the same platform does not clearly indicate the initiative is achieving its goals. The diversified natures of the current classrooms possess a great challenge in determining progress and rewards. The abilities and achievements of individual students should not be evaluated on a standard scale since they are different in various aspects.

Whitfield county school was given the grant for innovation. The grant is aimed to expand the Beyond the Classroom projects as per the principal, Dr. Judy Gilreath. Basing on literacy and wellbeing, the project aims at improving reading scores of children from birth to the age of eight years. The grant is intended to expand lunches and learning academies in the communities to six or more. Resources will be channeled to addressing health, family and emotional related matters. The funds will be used to attract more partner agencies to push together with the likes of Get Georgia Reading Campaign and Readers to Leaders.

In order to see success of the initiative, the states should build more effective communication and collaboration among the stakeholders. More competitive grounds and funds should be established to address various aspects of quality education. The department of education should not back away due to the additional powers on state school superintendents but should continue to exercise their power to monitor and hold every individual accountable in regards to the use of the funds.