On Thursdays, REL-NEI highlights state-based resources, press releases, and news around the Northeast and Islands Region related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). For a listing of REL Issues & Answers Reports categorized under ARRA topics and domains, click here.
Race to the Top ‘Take Two’ Applications Due June 1st
States in the Northeast and Islands Region are scrambling to complete their applications for the second phase of the $4.35 billion federal Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, which are due next Tuesday, June 1st. Early on Friday, May 28th, the New York State Assembly passed a bill to expand the number of charter schools in the state to 460 over four years, reported the Associated Press. The new legislation, which will be signed by Gov. David Paterson, will boost the state’s nearly $700 million application to RTTT. New York lost points in the first round of RTTT because the state had a limit on the number of charter schools allowed, among other reasons. View the state’s RTTT website.
And in Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell on May 26th signed into law a package of education reforms that
include stricter high school graduation requirements, alternative certification for school administrators, improved tracking of student and teacher performance, and increased parent involvement. The reforms strengthen the state’s chances of receiving up to $175 million from RTTT. Connecticut was not named a finalist in the competition’s first round. Learn more about Connecticut’s RTTT application here.
New Hampshire also will submit a Phase 2 application, and information on the state’s proposal, as well as its Comprehensive Strategic Plan for Education Reform, can be found here. Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island plan to apply as well, but Vermont will not.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced on May 24th that New Hampshire will receive an additional $54 million under ARRA’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) and on May 13th that Rhode Island will receive an additional $44.5 million under SFSF. The application to SFSF required states to provide data that will lay the foundation for education reform.
On May 21st, the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced that 20 states had received grants, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), to develop and implement statewide longitudinal data systems. The data systems grant program began in 2005, and this latest group of awardees (and grant amounts) includes: Maine ($7.3 million), Massachusetts ($13 million), and New York ($19.7 million). Read how New York plans to spend its money, in a press release from the state education department.
On May 20th, ED made $437 million in Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant applications available to school districts, nonprofits, and states to develop projects that reward teachers, principals, and other school personnel who improve student achievement.
TIF began in 2006 and currently supports 33 grant sites in 18 states.
Applications are due July 6th, and grants will be awarded in September. Read the press release.
On May 18th, the Vermont Department of Education posted on its website information about its School Improvement Grants (SIG), which will be competed out to school districts that have been identified by the state as “persistently lowest achieving” or Tier III schools. On April 30th, Secretary Duncan announced that Vermont will receive $8.5 million from the SIG fund.
Education Week reported on May 18th that more than 1,600 schools, districts, and nonprofits had applied for a share of the $650 million Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) by the May 12th deadline. The newspaper reported that only about 200 awards will be granted, and that the competition “is designed to serve as a catalyst for education innovation by providing small, seed-money grants to promising new ideas and to provide more funding to ideas with a proven track record that could be scaled up.”
For more information, visit these ARRA-related websites across the Northeast and Islands Region:
U.S. Department of Education
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/index.html
State Recovery Sites
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/state-local-tribal-and-territorial-resources
State Education Agency Recovery Sites
Education Week’s “Schools and the Stimulus”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/schools-stimulus/index.html
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