The Federal Department of Education recently launched a nationwide competition in which 2700 school districts and nonprofit organizations will compete for a $650 million innovation fund.  The program entitled, Investing in Innovation Fund, is broken down into three categories.  The first category consists of $5

million small development grants to support new, unproven ideas that seem worth exploring.  The next category features $30 million validation grants to support existing programs that have shown evidence of success.  Lastly, $50 million grants will be issued to programs that already have proven a strong track record for improving student achievement.

A few programs that are already expected to qualify for the additional funding include Teach for America and Green Dot.  Teach for America is a nonprofit organization that recruits above average college graduates for two years of teaching in hard to staff public and charter schools.  Green Dot is a nonprofit charter school organization.  Programs like D.A.R.E. (Drug Awareness Resistance Education) are discouraged from applying being that this specific program has already been proven ineffective for students.

The Federal Department of Education is optimistic that this new grant program will be a powerful lever for improving student achievement.  They are looking for organizations to show great supporting evidence that their programs will enhance student learning.  Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan says, “Some will find ways to establish a network of new schools or develop models to turn around low-performing schools.  Others will find new ways to explore how to engage children in the arts.”