The goal of this paper is to analyze Race to the Top to identify the program's strengths and weaknesses and to suggest what it can teach future designers and implementers of federal education policy.

States of greater interest to the White House may have received preferential grades on their Race to the Top applications.

The disheartening close of its prized program is bad news for the Obama administration and probably signals rough seas ahead for its education agenda in 2011.

The Obama administration has selected fifty-eight unknown reviewers to handle state applications for Race to the Top funds.

Obama's 2011 Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility plan grants certain states waivers from No Child Left Behind accountability requirements if they agree to a series of preset conditions, but the waiver plan poses several notable risks.