Secretary Duncan releases application for innovation grants

 

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan this week announced the availability of the grant application for the highly anticipated Investing in Innovation (i3) program. Applications will be due mid-May for the i3 grants, which are worth a total of $650 million. The grants will support local districts and nonprofit organizations—working in partnership with several districts and/or several schools—as they seek to implement educational innovations with promising or demonstrated effective outcomes for students. 

Through this program, competitive grants will be awarded to applicants with a record of improving student achievement and attainment in order to expand the implementation of, and investment in, innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on:

• improving student achievement or student growth,
• closing achievement gaps,
• decreasing dropout rates,
• increasing high school graduation rates, or
• increasing college enrollment and completion rates.

The notice of final priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria (NFP) for the i3 program can be found here on ED.gov: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/innovation/index.html 

There are three types of grants for which funding is available under the i3 program:  Scale-up Grants, Validation Grants, and Development Grants.  We advise interested local parties to carefully review the specifics regarding each of these grant types, as they look to determine which grant category is most suited to the specific progress level of their local activities.

 Applicants will have 60 days to develop applications. 

“Many of our generation’s greatest breakthroughs occur when people are willing to invest in small scale projects with big scale potential,” said Duncan. “We need to identify these pockets of promise in the education community and give them the resources they need to grow.”

To qualify for the competitive grants, applicants will need to address one of the four areas that are driving the Obama administration’s school reform agenda: supporting effective teachers and principals; improving the use of data to accelerate student achievement; complementing the implementation of standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and careers; and turning around persistently low-performing schools.

Applicants will receive a competitive preference if their project addresses one or more of the following priorities: improving outcomes for young children; expanding students’ access to college and preparing them for success in college; addressing the unique needs of students with disabilities and of limited English proficient students; and serving schools in rural areas.

Once identified as an award recipient, successful applicants will need to demonstrate how their programs will be sustainable after their federal grants are completed as well as find a 20 percent cash or in-kind match of the federal award from the private sector. To assist recipients in their efforts to find private matches and to serve the larger purpose of creating an innovation community, the Department of Education has launched an online community, the Open Innovation Portal. This is the first national forum within which entrepreneurs, education stakeholders of all types, and funders can partner to develop and fund innovative ideas in the education sector. Through this portal, the Department will hope to facilitate partnerships by convening like-minded individuals to accelerate the development, identification, and broad use of innovative products, practices, and processes to improve education in schools.

Applications will be due in mid-May and grants will be awarded in September. Officials from the Department’s Office of Innovation and Improvement will hold informational workshops in Atlanta, Baltimore and Denver that will be web-accessible. President Obama has proposed an additional $500 million of the i3 program in his fiscal 2011 budget.

Applications available here: http://www.ed.gov/programs/innovation/index.html