Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, a significant amount of funding has been targeted to improve state and local education systems. The Race to the Top Fund in particular is providing $4.35 billion in competitive grants for states. The U.S. Department of Education designated two phases for the Race to the Top grant competition. For Phase 1, the Education Department received a total of 41 applications--from 40 states and the District of Columbia. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and Learning Point Associates conducted a preliminary review of the 41 Phase 1 Race to the Top applications and identified key questions related to CCSSO's strategic initiatives. These questions, focusing on several themes across the applications that provide useful information to states and districts considering systemic education reform, were used as a framework for data collection. The preliminary review of the 41 applications resulted in some interesting findings about state methods of teacher evaluation. These findings are discussed in this brief. Two appendices are included: (1) Resources for Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness; and (2) Selection Criteria in the Race to the Top Application. (Contains 3 figures.)