Pulaski County's school board has sent a letter to Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, voicing some concerns over the federal government's latest competitive grant program.

An Aug. 27 letter signed by Chairman Paul Phillips said leaders in the school system are worried about implementation of the Race to the Top fund. The program is part of a large education funding section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. About $4.3 billion in "race" money would be given to states and school systems that implement so-called "innovative programs."

According to federal guidelines, new evaluation programs could tie teacher pay to student test scores and adoption of national common standards.

Those are two of the issues that Pulaski's board addressed in its letter, considered the division's public comment on the matter. The deadline for public comment on the program was Friday.

"We are especially concerned with language in the documents concerning common standards and assessments and reporting teacher and principal effectiveness," reads the letter, which Superintendent Don Stowers drafted.

Pulaski County board member Jeff Bain brought the concerns to the board. Bain is president-elect of the Virginia School Boards Association, whose national organization has voiced opposition to the program. Bain said his personal opposition boils down to the question of local control versus federal control.

"We know the local color and the flavor of our community better than they do," he said.

Stowers said he's worried that too many of the program's ideas will take more time than the federal government will give the states.

"States and localities should have the flexibility to develop their own definitions of effectiveness and utilize evaluation systems which are meaningful and helpful to them," the letter reads.

"If we're going to have all of these laudable goals and common standards ... if that's the way that we're going to go ... don't cut off money to us because we don't have it now," he said.

Applications for Phase 1 of the program are due in the coming months, with money expected to be handed down to states in the spring. A second phase would disburse money by fall 2010.

"It was our thinking that some of the things were moved on the timetable too quickly for us to be able to access the fund," Stowers said. "We're not necessarily opposed to things."

Price's Fork students help build instrument

Students at Price's Fork Elementary School will make music this week during a buildingwide project.

Students will finish constructing a bass marimba with former music teacher Brent Holl as part of music teacher Eric Young's class.

Holl made most of the instrument, but students will spend today and Thursday sanding and tuning sections of it.

Young is a part-time music teacher at Price's Fork, who splits his time among schools in Montgomery County.

This school year he earned one of the district's STAR grants, which are awarded to teachers for classroom-based projects.

Young is chronicling the project through a blog, which can be found at pfesmusic.wordpress.com/.