By AMANDA PAULSON and STACY TEICHER KHADAROO

Growing up in Chicago, Arne Duncan learned early that education was a stark dividing line - sometimes literally between life and death. At the South Side after-school center that his mom founded, he knew kids who'd made it all the way to fourth grade unable to read. And on the asphalt playgrounds of that rough area, he shot hoops with boys who later died in gang warfare. Mr. Duncan thought he'd glimpsed the worst kind of circumstance that can swallow up young people.

But then, on the desolate plains of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, the secretary of Education met Lame Deer High School freshman Teton Magpie. And that, as Duncan recounts with a surge of emotion, was a vivid glimpse at an even lower rung of despair in the American education system.

Sitting in a circle with students and teachers and, in the native American tradition, passing a feather to the person who had the floor, Duncan listened to the usual litany of requests for computers and fancy equipment. But an air of defeatism pervaded the place: In the past six years, only eight students have gone on to four-year colleges. Duncan was incredulous.

By BARBARA MARTINEZ

New York's win of nearly $700 million in federal education funds came three months after bruising negotiations in Albany that culminated in an 11th-hour agreement. Now, a much tougher battle begins.

New York's application to the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top competition was essentially a promise of what it would do if it won the money. Those pledges involve sweeping reform to the public education system of policies and problems that have remained intractable for decades.

"We know that the hard work is ahead of us," said Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the Board of Regents.

The ambitious initiatives promised in the state's application run from improving the way teachers are taught in education schools to how to make them accountable in the classrooms. The state has also vowed to use the money to create robust data systems to track student progress, to create a standard curriculum to be used in all schools and to turn around chronically failing schools.

By STEPHANIE BANCHERO and NEIL KING JR.

The Obama administration awarded $3.4 billion to nine states and the District of Columbia in a national competition to encourage school reform that spurred far-reaching changes in many cash-starved states, but left some losers bitter over the murky standards.

The awards unveiled Tuesday are part of the administration's $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" competition, a program that set in motion a national effort to tie teacher evaluations to student achievement, increase the number of charter schools and overhaul low-performing schools.

The states named to receive sums from $75 million to $700 million each were Hawaii, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, New York and Florida.

The program, a signature initiative of President Barack Obama that has won support in both parties, spurred many states to take decisive steps to improve K-12 education. Colorado passed a teacher evaluation law making it more difficult for teachers to earn tenure and easier for them to lose it. Illinois and New York lifted limits on the number of charter schools. Thirty-five states adopted a set of common learning standards setting out what students should know at each grade level in math and language arts.

By JENNIFER MEDINA

New York captured almost $700 million for schools when it was selected Tuesday as one of 10 winners in the federal Race to the Top competition, a victory for state education officials as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who had pushed the Legislature to enact changes that helped secure the money.

The state's success came after months of wrangling in Albany and fights with the state and city teachers' unions, who initially opposed many of the changes, most notably increasing the number of charter schools and tying teacher evaluations to standardized test scores.

But the moves still fell short of some of the more wide-ranging changes Mr. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, had pushed for, including paying teachers more in hard-to-staff subjects like math and science. And they have done nothing to change the way teachers are fired and laid off, which Mr. Klein has repeatedly called one of the biggest problems in education.

By AMANDA PAULSON

Nine states and the District of Columbia have emerged as winners in Round 2 of the closely watched Race to the Top competition, the Department of Education's innovative - and controversial - competition to reward reform efforts.

Together, they were competing for $3.4 billion available in federal funds.

In order of their rank, the winners are Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Florida, Rhode Island, D.C., Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio.

"We funded as many states as we could [until we] ran out of money," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a press call with reporters, noting that just a few points separated some of those states who failed to make the cut from the winners. "I can't overstate how strong the applications were in the second round."

Still, the big news among many education experts was who lost - particularly Louisiana and Colorado, widely considered leaders in education reform with priorities that are strongly aligned with those favored by the administration. And some of the winners - including Maryland, Ohio, and Hawaii - raised eyebrows, as well.

By DORIE TURNER

ATLANTA -- More than 13 million students and 1 million educators will share $3.4 billion from the second round of the federal "Race to the Top" grant competition, the U.S. Education Department said Tuesday.

The department chose nine states -- Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island -- and the District of Columbia for the grants. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said 25,000 schools will get money to raise student learning and close the achievement gap.

The "Race to the Top" program, part of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, rewards states for taking up ambitious changes to improve struggling schools. The competition instigated a wave of reforms across the country, as states passed new teacher accountability policies and lifted caps on charter schools to boost their chances of winning.

"These states show what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children," Duncan said in a conference call with reporters. "Every state that applied showed a tremendous amount of leadership and a bold commitment to education reform. The creativity and innovation in each of these applications is breathtaking."

By PAT WINGERT

While celebrations were breaking out in Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Florida, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio after the 10 were named winners of round two of the Obama administration's national education-reform competition, Race to the Top, controversy was mounting over some of the more surprising winners and losers.

Some education reformers described themselves as stunned that two states generally considered to be at the forefront of school innovation, Louisiana and Colorado, were among the "losers," while states with less impressive reform bona fides--Hawaii, Maryland, Ohio--were among the winners. Louisiana and Colorado were finalists in rounds one and two of the competition, while neither Hawaii nor Maryland made the finals in the first round. The winners will share $3.4 billion in prize money, to be divided based on population.

By JOE WILLIAMS