The Department of Education has named eighteen finalists in the competition for the second round of ‘Race to the Top’ funding:

The finalists are Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
Winners will be announced in September, and federal officials say they expect 10 to 15 of the finalists to receive financing.

I lean more on the “abolish the DoE” side of things, but in the realm of the possible Race to the Top should please conservatives. It rewards schools for embracing competition and bucking teacher unions. That’s surely worth something.