A week ago today, ConnCAN released an analysis that revealed 120 blanks in Connecticut’s application to the federal government for a share of the $4 billion available through the Race to the Top.

Our analysis caught the attention of quite a few people in Connecticut, including officials at the State Department of Education, who countered that the blanks were unavoidable because the federal government advised states that if they didn’t have the “baseline data” (numbers from this year against which to measure progress in the coming years), they should not make them up.

The thing is, we knew about that guidance, which is why the 120 blanks we reference in our analysis don’t refer to this baseline data at all. The 120 blanks in our analysis refer to the reform targets for the next four years. It’s one thing if Connecticut officials don’t have data, for example, on what percent of our state’s highly effective teachers are teaching poor kids this year. It’s another for them not to set targets for that goal in the next four years. Just because you don’t have a system now doesn’t mean you don’t put a plan in place to carry out reforms.

Lots of other states didn’t have baseline data for reforms this year. But those states, such as Massachusetts, filled in targets for the next four years, even if it meant passing new legislation to be able to do so.

This missing data is why ConnCAN’s “Our Race to the Top” legislative agenda includes proposals to create a system that would measure the effectiveness of teachers and principals, exactly the kind of system Connecticut would need to fill in the blanks for the next four years on our round two application.

One hundred twenty blanks in our round one application are 120 blanks we need to work with the legislature to fill before the round two deadline on June 1.