Texas won't race to the top

From The Austin American-Statesman: Texas will not compete for a highly coveted federal education grant that could have reaped the state as much as $700 million. Gov. Rick Perry says the application process for the $4 billion Race to the Top program required to much and provided too little. Both Perry and Education Commissioner Robert Scott have harshly criticized the program’s rules, and Scott has suggested that one provision was a harbinger of a federal takeover of public schools. The decision not to apply fits nicely into the anti-Washington narrative that has dominated Perry’s gubernatorial primary against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.