Enlarge By Drew Angerer, AP Education Secretary Arne Duncan speaks about the federal "Race to the Top" school reform grant competition earlier this summer. ATLANTA  The U.S. Education Department said Tuesday that nine states and the District of Columbia will get money to reform schools in the second round of the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant competition. Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., will receive grants, department spokesman Justin Hamilton said. The amounts for each state were expected to be announced later. The aim of the historic program is to reward ambitious changes to improve schools and close the achievement gap. 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. Florida tied New York State with $700 million. Gov. Charlie Crist attributed the success to the working group led by Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho to rewrite the Memorandum of Understanding after being rejected in the first round. Teacher unions and school boards, including Brevard County, opposed the original application because it didn't seek teacher input on performance-based pay policies the first time around. "As a result, Florida's teachers and school leaders overwhelmingly supported the revised MOU, including 54 local teacher unions," Crist said. Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith said the money would help Florida meet its commitment to overcoming obstacles to student success. "With this critical funding secured we will be able to accelerate the academic progress of our students, provide assistance to our low performing schools and develop a system that properly recognizes and rewards our hardest working teachers," Smith said. Maryland is expected to receive $250 million through the initiative, said Bill Reinhard of the state education department. John Fredericksen, superintendent of the Wicomico County, Md., school system, said groups such as special-needs children should benefit from the changes. "This could help us make a big difference in a year when the money went backward," he said. Tennessee and Delaware were named winners in the first round of the competition in March, sharing $600 million. The applicants named winners Tuesday will share a remaining $3.4 billion. Another $350 million is coming in a separate competition for states creating new academic assessments. The historic program, part of President Obama's economic stimulus plan, rewards states for embarking on ambitious reforms to improve struggling schools, close the achievement gap and boost graduation rates. "New York's schools have made strong strides toward excellence and this grant will accelerate that progress," said U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who met with Education Secretary Arne Duncan on New York's proposal. "This is great news for parents, teachers, and taxpayers across the state." Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia applied for the second round of the competition. The Education Department named 19 applicants finalists in July. More than a dozen states vying for the money changed laws to foster the growth of charter schools, and at least 17 reformed teacher evaluation systems to include student achievement. Dozens also adopted Common Core State Standards, the uniform math and reading benchmarks developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. "The change unleashed by conditioning federal funding on bold and forward-looking state education policies is indisputable," the Democrats for Education Reform said in a statement. "Under the president's leadership, local civil rights, child advocacy, business and education reform groups, in collaboration with those state and local teacher unions ready for change, sprung into action to achieve things that they had been waiting and wanting to do for years." In a speech announcing the finalists last month, Duncan called the change a "quiet revolution." Between both rounds of the competition, a total of 46 states and the District of Columbia applied. While the program has been praised for instigating swift reforms, the competition for many states was an uphill battle, with teacher unions hesitant to sign on to reforms directly tying teacher evaluations to student performance on standardized tests, and education leaders concerned winning meant giving up too much local control. A number of states that did not win the competition said they still planned to proceed with the reforms they had proposed, though they acknowledged change would take place at a slower pace. Contributing: Greg Latshaw of The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times; Jeff Schweers of Florida Today Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more