New Hampshire has missed out on another round funding in the federal education grant program Race to the Top. The state was hoping for $37.5 million dollars to improve pre-k and early childhood education programs.
New Hampshire was hoping to use the federal dollars to build a system of ranking and incentives that would encourage pre-k programs to improve, to increase the continuing education available to educators, and to increase the level of subsidies going to low-income families. When the grant was being written Deborah Nelson, the state’s Head Start Director said the money would “give the state a lot of clout to be able to build things that otherwise would take another fifteen years at least.”
Neighboring Vermont won a grant for nearly $37 million dollars, making it the second state in the region to do so. Massachusetts received a grant in the first year of the funding in 2011. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia applied for the awards and six were given out, making a total of twenty states that have received federal support for early childhood education.
There’s no word yet on whether there will be another round of funding
