The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides an opening for states and local school districts to include racial and socioeconomic (SES) diversity as components of their improvement plans. While only one state (New York) took advantage of this opportunity in the initial round of state ESSA plans, there are several ways that school districts can…

President Barack Obama's latest budget proposal envisions a sweeping, multi-billion-dollar expansion of prekindergarten programs and doubles down on the administration's strategy of using competitive grants to drive big change in states and districts--all as school districts try to cope with the largest cuts to federal education spending in recent…

When the 16 Race to the Top-District (RTT-D) victors were announced in December 2012, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proclaimed, "Now these winners can empower their school leaders to pursue innovative ideas where they have the greatest impact: the classroom." He backed up his statement with nearly $400 million in awards to be…

Almost two years into the federal Race to the Top program, states are spending their shares of the $4 billion prize at a snail's pace--a reflection of the challenges the 12 winners face as they try to get ambitious education improvement plans off the ground. Through the end of March, the 11 states and the District of Columbia had spent just 14…

Policy makers' attempts to improve low-achieving schools through reform measures are not new to the 21st century. Research asserts that this policy churn has done little, if anything, to change student achievement levels. Based on the research, I assert that policy reforms such as teacher evaluations and test-based assessment, and school…

If Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wins the November election, his ascension could endanger--or dismantle--key Obama administration education initiatives and lead to a slimmed-down and less activist U.S. Department of Education. Scaled back Education Department and cloudy prospects for Obama initiatives are among the scenarios. But…

The National Resource Centers Program provides grants to institutions of higher education to establish, strengthen, and operate comprehensive and undergraduate centers that are national resources for: (1) Teaching modern foreign languages, especially the less and least commonly taught languages; (2) Disciplinary instruction to provide a thorough…

This article features the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program at the University of Memphis. The McNair program is named after Ronald E. McNair, the second African-American in space, who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986. Approximately 200 campuses across the nation host the program. Whereas the program…

Demand is far outpacing resources in one hot segment of the education innovation market, as districts, schools, and nonprofit organizations pitch reform proposals worth $12.8 billion for competitive grants to be awarded under the federal Investing in Innovation Fund, or "i3"--nearly 20 times what the U.S. Department of Education has available. The…

Grant recipients risk losing millions of dollars in Race to the Top money if they fail to live up to their promises, federal education officials make clear. By threatening to revoke Hawaii's $75 million Race to the Top award for failing to make "adequate progress" on key milestones of its education reform plan, U.S. Secretary of…

States significantly increased buy-in from local teachers' unions in round two of the Race to the Top competition, but made far less progress in enlisting districts or expanding the number of students affected by the states' education reform plans. Those patterns emerged from an "Education Week" analysis of applications from 29 states…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) targeted substantial School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to the nation's "persistently lowest achieving" public schools (i.e., up to $2 million per school annually over 3 years) but required schools accepting these awards to implement a federally prescribed school-reform model.…

Ambitious student-achievement targets turn up the heat, as winners of the $4 billion federal grant effort push to deliver. Winners of the $4 billion Race to the Top jackpot committed to grand goals in using the federal grants to raise student achievement, as measured by higher test scores, narrowed achievement gaps, and increased graduation and…

The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the economic stimulus package, provided an extra $3 billion for school improvement grants (SIGs) under section 1003(g) of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Along with this funding increase, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance…

In the first wave of funding under a revitalized high school graduation initiative, the U.S. Department of Education is betting nearly $50 million that it can help states and school districts find better ways to hang onto students who might drop out and bring back those who have disappeared without diplomas. Twenty-nine states and districts won…