Race to Top Hopefuls Honing In-Person Bids for Share of $4 Billion

With millions of grant dollars on the line, representatives of the 16 state finalists for federal Race to the Top prize money will go to Washington this week to make final, in-person pitches to the U.S. Department of Education for investment in their brand of school reform.

How a state’s delegation performs in a 30-minute presentation and a 60-minute question-and-answer session with a panel of judges could make or break its chances in round one of the competition. The Race to the Top Fund will award $4 billion in such grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

That pressure has had the 15 states and the District of Columbia—which learned only March 4 that they were finalists—scrambling to perfect their presentations and assemble high-powered five-person...