• A Call to Invest in Innovation
• The Common Core Standards Initiative: Uniting States Around Student Learning

A Call to Invest in Innovation

The Department of Education released the final guidelines and rules for the Investing in Innovation (i3) grant program this week.  The i3 program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is designed to foster and expand innovative education strategies at the local level in one of four areas:

• Innovations that support effective teachers and principals
• Innovations that improve the use of data
• Innovations that complement the implementation of high standards and high-quality assessments
• Innovations that turn around persistently low-performing schools

The $650 million i3 fund shares the goals of Race to the Top to drive and stimulate reform, but also spur the systemic transformation needed to impact student achievement and bolster our economic competiveness as a nation. Unlike the Race to the Top grant program, however, the i3 fund accepts proposals from individual districts, or groups of districts, and from non-profits that are collaborating with individual districts or groups of districts.

In order to be eligible for an i3 grant, applicants must meet nine specific eligibility requirements including a focus on high-need students, demonstration of prior success, evidence to scale-up programs and the ability to secure 20 percent in matching funds from the private sector.
Applicants may apply for one of three types of grants under i3, each with different requirements and funding levels:

1. Scale Up, up to $50 million: requires strong evidence and ability to scale at the national, regional or state level;
2. Validation, up to $30 million: requires moderate evidence and ability to scale regionally or at the state level; and,
3. Development, up to $5M: requires reasonable evidence and the ability to further develop and scale.

Each of the three types of grants will be scored against the same 100-point scale, based on seven criteria:

• Need for the project and quality of the project design
• Strength and research, significant effect and magnitude of effect
• Experience of the eligible applicant
• Quality of the project evaluation
• Strategy and capacity to bring to scale or to further develop and bring to scale the project
• Sustainability
• Quality of the management plan and personnel

It is expected that more than 1,000 districts and nonprofit organizations will submit i3 applications to the Department of Education by the May 11, 2010 deadline. All grant awards will be announced in September 2010. To learn more, visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website.

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Washington students no longer compete with students across the classroom, county or state line, but with students across the globe. To maintain our competitive edge, we need every student to be well prepared to compete not only with their American peers, but with students from around the world. At its core, this means holding all our students to the same rigorous standards—and making sure that our standards are benchmarked not just nationally, but internationally.

This is the mission behind the “Common Core Standards Initiative” and the Initiative’s draft K-12 standards released yesterday for public comment.  In a process being led by governors and chief state school officers in 51 states, territories, and the District of Columbia, these draft standards—developed together with teachers, school administrators and experts—seek to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.

President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have endorsed the Common Core standards. State adoption of the standards is part of the Race to the Top grant criteria and it is rumored that the Administration may tie adoption of the Common Core standards to Title I funding for disadvantaged students.

“Creating common standards hasn't always been popular,” said Sec. Duncan in July 2009. “Right now, though, there's a growing consensus that this is the right thing to do.”

Due to President Obama and Secretary Duncan’s endorsement, 48 states including Washington, have signed on to potentially adopt the standards and many states have taken legislative action to require implementation. Governor Chris Gregoire and Superintendent Randy Dorn have signed an agreement to participate in the development process and potentially adopt the standards. Washington’s Race to the Top legislation calls for provisional adoption of the standards.

Designated as a Race to the Top finalist, Kentucky has already begun implementing the standards. Thirteen of the other 15 finalists plan to adopt the standards by August 2010. And, for many states, the process of standards adoption is only the beginning.
With assistance from federal State Standards and Assessment Consortium grants ($350 million in total) and organizations such as Achieve, ACT, and the College Board, groups of states plan to band together to build common assessments around the standards.

Washington is currently a member on two such consortia: a formative assessment group working to design a measure of a student’s knowledge at the beginning of a course; and a summative assessment group working to design a measure of a student’s knowledge at the end of the course.

This movement represents a sea-change in national education policy that will ensure that students are receiving the same college-ready curriculum regardless of the state they live in and allow the federal government to truly compare student performance between states for the first time.

So far, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have received feedback from national organizations representing teachers, postsecondary institutions, civil rights groups, English language learners, and students with disabilities. However, both groups encourage those interested in the standards to provide further feedback by Friday, April 2, 2010, at www.corestandards.org. The standards are expected to be finalized in early Spring 2010.

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