What We're Saying

Categories

FUNDED Issues

 

FUNDED Articles

Investing in Innovation Highest-Rated Applications Announced

By Susannah Mayhall

On November 8, 2012, the Department of Education announced the third round of potential awardees for the Investing in Innovation (i3) competition, a grant program initiated during the Recovery Act of 2009 and awarding nearly $800 million during its two previous competitions in 2010 and 2011. As in previous competitions, the Department first announced the applicants with the highest scores. In order to receive funding, these applicants must secure the required matching amounts by December 7, 2012. Final awards will be announced by the end of the year and are expected to total more than $140M.

The 2012 competition marks the first year in which no Scale-Up applicants were listed among the highest-rated applications (HRAs). Among the three categories of i3 grants, Scale-Up grants are the largest (with awards ranging up to $25M) and carry the strictest evidence requirements. To secure a Scale-Up grant, an applicant must present "strong evidence" that the proposed practice, strategy, or program will have a statistically significant effect 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, and that the effect of implementing the proposed practice, strategy, or program will be substantial and important.  In previous competitions, one 2011 Scale-Up grant in the amount of $24,995,690 and four 2010 Scale-Up grants averaging $48,179,664 each were made. Although ten Scale-Up applications were submitted in 2012, none were slated to receive an award in 2012.

Notably, only two Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) are among the list of HRAs: Central Falls School District in Rhode Island, proposing an ambitious parent and family engagement project, and Clark County School District in Nevada, proposing a STEM coursework model that emphasizes real-world applications. Comparatively, in previous competitions, a total of 21 school districts were named on the highest-scoring lists (7 in 2011 and 14 in 2010). Judging by the purported impact of the Validation HRAs, most school districts would stand little chance of succeeding in this category due to their limited reach. Most of the projects identify student/teacher impact in the tens of thousands, with one project even claiming a projected impact on 164,000 students. With aims set this high, acquiring larger Validation grants seems to be out of reach  for local districts.

Based on the trends demonstrated in this year's list of HRAs, applicants for future funding rounds should anticipate the need to provide high quality evidence demonstrating the impact of their proposed projects and coupled with a broad project impact. For organizations looking to apply to the i3 program in 2013, now is the time to begin collecting data to support their applications and work on developing and strengthening partnerships. In addition, school districts looking to receive i3 funding might want to think in terms of partnerships with a consortium of schools or nonprofit organizations rather than individual LEA-driven applications.

The press release listing the highest-scoring applicants for 2012 can be found at http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/education-department-announces-highest-rated-applications-investing-innovation-2. Complete data concerning the HRAs, including project summaries, partners, and population served, can be found at http://www.data.gov/communities/node/38/grants.