The feds have now approved 27 of the 31 amendments Hawaii has sought for its Race to the Top plan in the last 12 months, despite tough talk about following through.

The U.S. Department of Education rejected four requested amendments in December, citing lack of progress on key reforms promised in the state’s application. Since then, nine others have been approved — some of them modifications to the ones rejected in December.

For example, the feds said last month that they are now OK with dispensing funds for Hawaii to develop a teacher evaluation system — just not to implement one, because “It is the Department’s understanding from HIDOE that it still does not have authority to fully implement a teacher evaluation system that includes all the elements included in the approved application.”

The latest approved amendments, per a press release from the DOE today:

• Shift $3 million in federal Race to the Top funds to support teacher mentorship training and program quality monitoring in school years 2012-13 and 2013-14. 
• Expend $2M budgeted towards substitute teachers during the training phase of the teacher evaluation to be used in RTTT year two and three, rather than equally spread across all four years.
• Allocate funds towards a Strategic Data Fellow, to be housed in the Office of Strategic Reform, and recruited and trained by Harvard University’s School of Education. The Data Fellow will expand the Department’s capacity to conduct real time analyses of existing college and career ready data and human resource data to inform associated RTTT implementation efforts

“The approved amendments are a vote of confidence in Hawaii’s efforts to dramatically reshape the way the State supports new teachers and principals,” said Office of Strategic Reform Assistant Superintendent Stephen Schatz.