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…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of School Improvement Grants (SIGs) in the state of California (CA) in increasing student achievement using the turnaround implementation model. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included educational priorities focused on fixing America's lowest achieving schools.…

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…

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…

Background: School accountability policies and high-stakes testing have created new demands on state policy makers to provide assistance to low-performing schools. California's response was the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program (II/USP) and the High Priority School Grants Program (HPSGP). Objective/Research Question/Focus of…

The Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) program released Requests for Proposals in March for the next round of teacher professional development projects. The first RFP, Addressing the Achievement Gap in Middle Schools (AAGMIS), is for stand-alone grants similar to the 2008 projects that target the achievement gap in elementary schools. The second RFP,…

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…

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The law had a very simple mission: kick-start an economic recovery through strategic investment. Deep within the law were a number of key education initiatives, including Race to the Top (RTT), which was a way to invest in the nation's education system…

At the end of 2005, Robert D. Felner was riding high. A well-paid dean at the University of Louisville, he had just secured a $694,000 earmarked grant from the U.S. Department of Education to create an elaborate research center to help Kentucky's public schools. The grant proposal, which Mr. Felner had labored over for months, made some impressive…

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…

The Faculty Grants for the Improvement of Undergraduate Instruction, Excellence in Teaching Awards, and Distinguished Teaching Professorships programs were implemented in 1972 by the State University of New York (SUNY) in an effort to recognize and reward teaching excellence. An evaluation of these programs was conducted as part of a national…

At least 5,000 public schools have failed to meet their academic achievement targets for at least five consecutive years. The underlying causes of such failure are usually a combination of weak leadership, inadequate skill levels among teachers, and insufficient high-quality teaching materials. In 2009, the National Governors Association Center…

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education invited states to apply for the Race to the Top--Early Learning Challenge (RTTT-ELC) to help states' efforts in supporting young children and their families through the development of more unified early learning systems, better information sharing among educators, and an increase in access to quality early…

Federal education officials last week pledged that the economic-stimulus program's $650 million innovation fund will reserve the largest grants for schools, districts, and nonprofit organizations that want to finance programs with proven track records and are ready to grow. In the U.S. Department of Education's first substantial preview of the…