ARRA NEWS & OFFICIAL GUIDANCE

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Race to the Top

President Obama and Secretary Duncan released the draft application for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund. View the President's announcement and supporting materials. The draft application is in the Federal Register; view the comments submitted by 1,100 individuals and organizations. Phase 1 applications notice will be published in October, with applications due in December and awards in March 2010. Phase 2 applications will be due in June 2010, with awards in September. Unsuccessful Phase 1 applicants will be eligible to reapply in Phase 2. 

In order to be eligible for Phase 1 competition, a state's applications for both phases of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund must be approved by December 31. In addition, states may not have any legal barriers to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for purposes of evaluation.

Secretary Duncan has proposed five priorities for Race to the Top, with different degrees of emphasis):

1. Comprehensive approach to the four education reform areas (required of all applications)
2. Emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (applications with this emphasis will have a competitive preference)
3. Expansion and adaptation of statewide longitudinal data systems, integrating with early childhood, special education, postsecondary education and other areas, and with multistate approach. (invitational priority - of interest but doesn't provide competitive preference)
4. P-20 coordination and vertical alignment (invitational priority)
5. School-level conditions for reform and innovation: school-level hiring and budgetary authority, expanded learning time, awarding credits based on student performance, and providing comprehensive services to high-need students.

Race to the Top will reward states for having created the conditions for reform (measured through proposed State Reform Conditions Criteria) and for increasing student achievement. It will also assess states based on the quality of their proposed comprehensive reform strategies (measured through proposed Reform Plan Criteria). These criteria are outlined in the draft application. 

Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller hosted a webinar July 27 for education policymakers, association leaders and other stakeholders, outlining more than $9 billion in new initiatives for states and school districts, including the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" Fund. The webcast and transcript are available here.

Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund 

Secretary Duncan and Jim Shelton, deputy assistant secretary for innovation and improvement, provided a briefing August 20 on the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund (previously called the What Works and Innovation Fund).

The i3 grants will be awarded to local education agencies (LEAs) and non-profits; the application will also allow small subsets of schools within a district to apply. Recipients will be expected to provide additional public or private funds to ensure the innovations will be sustainable.

Jim Shelton announced the Department is developing a public-private platform to help connect innovators, supporters, and education stakeholders across the country. By establishing a web-based platform for idea-sharing and vetting, the Department hopes to create a level playing field, facilitate partnerships, and help funders find promising ideas to support.

i3 funds will be awarded under a guiding principle that grants should be larger for proven programs than those for untested ideas. Secretary Duncan outlined three types of grants that will be awarded under i3:

• Pure innovation grants - grants of up to $5 million, awarded to promising ideas.
• Strategic investment grants - grants of up to $30 million to build a research base or enhance organizational capacity to enable scaling.
• Grow what works grants - grants of up to $50 million to grow proven programs.

Duncan and Shelton repeatedly reinforced the importance of developing comprehensive strategies and stated that they will continue to seek ways to integrate the core reform elements in other upcoming competitive grant streams. They noted that this approach is likely to inform ESEA reauthorization and that there were opportunities to rethink the impact of formula grants in the future.

A draft i3 application will be published in the Federal Register this fall. Current plans are to award funding in two rounds, during the winter and spring, but these may be consolidated into a single later round to provide more time for building partnerships.

School Improvement Grants

The U.S. Department of Education announced draft requirements August 26 for $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement grants targeting the nation's lowest-performing schools, with public comment due by September 25. The proposed guidelines represent a significant change in emphasis from past years, with closely prescribed requirements for use of the funds. The proposed guidelines require states to identify their bottom 5% of Title 1 schools and implement one of four comprehensive reform models: turnaround (replacing the principal and at least 50% of the staff); restart (closing the school and reopening it under the management of a charter school or education management organization); closure (closing the school and transfering students to higher-performing schools), and transformation (implementing a comprehensive transformation strategy). The grants will be funded by $546 million from the department's FY2009 appropriation and an additional $3 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

ARRA Resources from the U.S. Department of Education:

• The Department's document, Using ARRA Funds to Drive School Reform and Improvement, provides framing questions for decision-making and examples of potential uses of funds to improve educational outcomes from early learning through high school. It is intended to spark ideas about how school districts and schools might use ARRA funds.
   
• The Department has compiled guidance documents for ARRA funding streams. Secretary Duncan's April 3 PowerPoint presentation also contains helpful detailed guidance on uses of ARRA funds.
   
• In a special GFE teleconference on April 23, Assistant Deputy Secretary Jim Shelton discussed the What Works/Innovation Fund and outlined potential roles and opportunities for education grantmakers.
   
• The Department has encouraged grantmakers with questions or comments about ARRA to contact the Department via a special email address:  recovery.philanthropy@ed.gov
  
• The Department has compiled, and continues to update, a list of political appointees to the agency at http://www.ed.gov/news/staff/update.html.

The Obama Administration revised its ban on verbal communications regarding stimulus spending under ARRA to apply to all individuals, and not just registered lobbyists. Learn more.

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