ATLANTA (AP) -- Georgia is not among the winners of the U.S. Department of Education's grant competition for early learning programs.
Federal officials announced Friday that the state did not make the list of nine recipients of $500 million in "Race to the Top" money. Georgia won $400 million last year from a similar grant competition for K-12 education.
Georgia was once considered a national leader in early learning and was the first state to offer free prekindergarten to any 4-year-old who wanted to enroll. But in the last few years, the state has made cuts to the program.
The winning states were: California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)