The Department’s Monitoring of Race to the Top Program Recipient Performance

Our audit examined the extent to which RTT grantees adhered to timelines established in their applications and related scopes of work and achieved project performance measures and goals, and the effectiveness of the Department’s oversight of RTT grantees to ensure that funds were used as intended and anticipated recipient performance was achieved in support of overall programmatic goals. All five States reviewed had varying degrees of success in adhering to timelines and in achieving performance measures and goals. In some cases, certain activities and deliverables within projects were delayed, while in other cases, entire projects were delayed. These delays ranged from months to years, and their overall effect on States’ plans varied. We found the Department established and implemented an extensive and effective process for monitoring RTT program recipients, and we recommended that it continue to maintain its robust monitoring efforts and take appropriate action if States continually fail to meet project timelines or performance measures and goals. We also noted that the Department had not yet issued a Comprehensive RTT Annual Report—an overview of RTT efforts across all grantees, to include trends and statistics across all States, successes and accomplishments, common challenges, and lessons learned, as discussed in its RTT Program Review Guide.