If the competition for a slice of $4 billion in federal Race to the Top Fund money were a school class, Colorado would be one of the kids sitting up front, furiously taking notes, and leaping up to answer every one of the teacher's questions. Officials here began plotting their strategy for receiving one of the coveted grants nearly as soon as the Race to the Top program was created in February as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the $787 billion economic-stimulus package. Colorado is hardly the only state pulling out all the stops for the Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion grant program created under the recovery act to reward states for making progress on a series of "assurances" oriented to education redesign. (The U.S. Department of Education is earmarking $350 million of that fund to help states develop assessments as part of a nationwide push for common academic standards.) But Colorado has gone further, setting up four committees, each concentrating on one of the assurances specified in the stimulus law. They focus on low-performing schools, teacher and principal quality and distribution, state data systems, and standards and assessments. Colorado would hope to use Race to the Top funding in part to carry out laws passed in recent years that appear to be in line with some of the policies U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is trying to advance through the program. If Colorado is tapped for a federal award, the state may create a computer-based test that could include a formative component to help teachers get a "real-time picture" of their students' progress toward meeting the new standards. And the state may use some of the grant to improve its data-collection system.