Calif. wins $1.2 billion for Education Fund

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that California will receive $1.2 billion to support education jobs.

"There is a huge sense of urgency to get these funds out the door. I commend California for being the first state to submit their application and thank our team at the Department for making funds available within a matter of days," said Duncan. "These education dollars will help California keep thousands of teachers in the classroom working with our students this school year."

The $10 billion education fund will support education jobs in the 2010-11 school year and be distributed to states by a formula based on population figures. States can distribute their funding to school districts based on their own primary funding formula or districts' relative share of federal Title I funds.

Over the last two years, the Department has been able to support 300,000 education jobs through stimulus funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. At this time, 7 states have drawn down 100% of previously allocated jobs funding, while 18 states total have drawn down 80% or more. A July report from the independent Center on Education Policy found that 75% of school districts that received stimulus funds expect to cut teaching positions in the upcoming school year.

$3 Million career readiness initiative

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University has announced a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help school districts improve their high school graduation rates and college and career readiness efforts.

The grant will be used to develop College Readiness Indicator Systems that schools can use to identify students in danger of dropping out of high school or graduating unprepared for postsecondary education or a job. According to leading researchers, attendance patterns, course failures, suspensions, and other factors can be used to predict which students are on track to graduate and which are not.

The Annenberg Institute will select up to six school districts or networks nationwide to take part in the project. The sites will work with the institute and the John W. Gardner Center at Stanford University to expand and implement their early warning systems to focus on college and career readiness. The grant also will support semi-annual meetings among participants to encourage the frequent sharing of information and best practices.

Transforming STEM learning

TSL combines interests and resources of separate programs in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) to explore the opportunities and challenges implied by innovative visions of the future for STEM learning.?? The TSL program invites interdisciplinary teams of STEM content specialists, experts in relevant technologies, STEM formal and informal education specialists, researchers with expertise in the learning sciences, and specialists in education research and evaluation methods to submit proposals for research projects that (1) Study efficacy of existing prototypes for innovations like virtual schools, special STEM schools, and educational programs that combine opportunities of formal and informal learning resources in their communities; or (2) Design and conduct exploratory development of new potentially transformative models for STEM learning environments.?? The cross-cutting proposals will draw from work in the four primary DRL programs: Discovery Research K-12 (DR K-12), Informal Science Education (ISE), Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE), and Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST).?? However, proposals submitted in response to this solicitation must have a scope that extends well beyond any of those programs individually.

Link to Full Announcement: NSF Publication 10-602

Afterschool reading and math grants awarded

[From Philanthropy News Digest] The New York Life Foundation has announced a two-year, $1.6 million grant to the Oakland-based Developmental Studies Center to expand its afterschool reading and math enrichment programs nationally.

Building on New York Life Foundation grants of $700,000 in 2007 and $2.4 million in 2008, the latest funding will enable at least eight hundred new sites around the country to participate in the Afterschool KidzLit and Afterschool KidzMath programs, bringing the total number of participating sites to three thousand. KidzLit is a K-8 reading enrichment and social development program built around nearly two hundred popular children's books featuring diverse cultures and settings, while KidzMath is a K-6 math enrichment and social development program that utilizes a mix of fifty collaborative games and twenty math-related storybooks.

Program sites receive free professional development for two or three of their staff members at thirty workshops across the country as well as a 10 percent discount on materials. High-need program sites (those with at least 50 percent disadvantaged children) receive a 25 percent discount on materials.

YouthBuild Walmart Foundation grants

[Philanthropy News Digest] The Walmart Foundation has announced a $2.6 million grant to YouthBuild USA to support education and job training for low-income youth.

The grant will provide training in green building skills to two thousand 16- to 24-year-olds while they work toward their GEDs or high school diplomas. Through YouthBuild programs, the young people will help build affordable housing units for homeless and poor people in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

“The Walmart Foundation Awards $2.6 Million to YouthBuild USA.” Walmart Foundation Press Release 8/11/10.

Verizon PA Library grants

[From Philanthropy News Digest] Pennsylvania's twenty-nine district library center organizations are invited to compete for a total of $150,000 in grants from the Verizon Foundation to support literacy initiatives that incorporate Verizon Thinkfinity.org resources into their programs.

The foundation will award grants of up to $15,000 each to district library center organizations that best use Thinkfinity.org resources to enhance existing programs, or launch new ones, for library patrons. Thinkfinity.org offers free, online educational and literacy resources for teachers, parents, and students provided in partnership with leading educational and literacy organizations. To be eligible, grant applicants must be Pennsylvania nonprofit district library center organizations.

Proposals must be submitted online at the Verizon Foundation's Web site.
Link to Complete RFP

New postsecondary education awards

[From Philanthropy News Digest] Indianapolis-based USA Funds has announced grants totaling $2.8 million to one hundred organizations in eleven states and the District of Columbia working to broaden access to postsecondary education.

Second-quarter grants included $275,000 to the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund to produce a white paper that examines how Asian and Pacific Islander students finance their education, $270,000 to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education for the Learn More Indiana program, and $100,000 to the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning for the College Knowledge Project, which is designed to inform low-income and first-generation Mississippi students of postsecondary education opportunities.

"These awards support programs that improve students' awareness of and preparation for postsecondary education, promote access to high-quality higher education opportunities, and increase student persistence and completion of their programs of study," said USA Funds senior vice president of program and corporate development Robert C. Ballard. "USA Funds focuses its grantmaking primarily on underserved low-income middle and high school students, students of color, and first-generation postsecondary students."

“USA Funds Awards $2.8 Million in Higher Education Grants.” USA Funds Press Release 8/03/10.

Investing in Innovation Fund Awards

The U.S. Department of Education has announced forty-nine finalists for the $650 million Investing in Innovation (i3) fund.

Chosen from a pool of nearly 1,700 applicants, the finalists include four organizations — the KIPP Foundation, Ohio State University, the Success for All Foundation, and Teach for America — that are eligible for grants of up to $50 million to scale-up education programs with proven track records. Fifteen applicants are eligible for grants of up to $30 million to cultivate programs with emerging evidence of success, and thirty are eligible for grants of up to $5 million for the development of promising ideas. The finalists will focus on projects in two hundred and fifty communities in more than forty-two states and two territories.

Two Pennsylvania education organizations are receiving up to $30 million in federal Recovery Act funding to further develop promising innovations in education that will benefit Pennsylvania students, acting Education Secretary Thomas E. Gluck announced. Children’s Learning Initiative, based in Philadelphia, and ASSET Inc., based in Pittsburgh, were awarded highly-competitive “validation” grants through the i3 fund to build upon programs which have shown evidence of success.

Also among the 49 winning applications are seven other organizations that will partner with Pennsylvania school districts, nonprofit organizations and institutions of higher education. Some of the school districts and communities that will benefit from these i3 funds include Easton, Homestead, Reading, Bethlehem, Carnegie, East Stroudsburg, Wrightsville, Erie City SD, Philadelphia and Harrisburg City SD. For additional information on the i3 funds and descriptions of winner initiatives, visit http://www2.ed.gov/programs/innovation/index.html