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Delaware Pushes to Meet Race to Top Promises

Reading specialist Catherine DeFelice helps Tyrell Pope, 17, write his portfolio research paper in an English class at Delcastle Technical High School in Wilmington, Del., where federal Race to the Top money is being put to use at the school level.

—Emily Varisco for Education Week

By Michele McNeil

Wilmington, Del.

In one English classroom here, Delcastle Technical High School teacher Nicole Irani experimented over the past few weeks with open- and closed-book quizzes, closely monitoring how her students performed on one type of test compared with another.

In a different English classroom, her colleague David Pody watched over the span of a semester as his students did far better on more complicated, open-ended test questions than the cut-and-dried variety.

Later, during a 45-minute common professional-development time for teachers, data coach Brenda Dorrell plumbed the experiences of the school’s English teachers, who are part of a pilot program financed by the federal Race to the Top program that seeks to inject data into the conversations, culture,...