Highest-Rated Investing in Innovation (i3) Applicants Announced

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) recently selected the highest-rated Investing in Innovation (i3) applicants. These 49 school districts, nonprofit education organizations and institutions of higher education were chosen from among nearly 1,700 applicants. To officially become an i3 grantee, the winning applicants have until September 8^th to secure commitment for a 20% private sector match.

The Investing in Innovation (i3) fund will support local efforts in developing, validating, or scaling up innovative programs that aim to improve student achievement, close achievement gaps, decrease dropout rates, increase high school graduation rates, or increase college enrollment and completion rates.

The grants fall into three categories:

• Scale-Up grants: Up to $50 million each for expanding programs with a strong track record of success (Four winning applicants)
• Validation grants: Up to $30 million each for growing programs with emerging evidence of success (15 winning applicants)
• Development grants: Up to $5 million each for promising ideas (30 winning applicants)

ED chose the winning proposals based on recommendations from independent peer review panels. Reviewers' comments and scores for all of the highest-rated i3 applicants, as well as application narratives for the highest-rated Scale-Up applicants, are available at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/innovation/2010/applications.html.

We will spend this week offering summaries of these applications that present programs most specifically related to high school improvement, including those focused on high school graduation, college-readiness, and STEM initiatives.[1]

Note: This blog post was originally authored under the auspices of the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The National High School Center’s blog, High School Matters, which ran until March 2013, provided an objective perspective on the latest research, issues, and events that affected high school improvement. The CCRS Center plans to continue relevant work originally developed under the National High School Center grant. National High School Center blog posts that pertain to CCRS Center issues are included on this website as a resource to our stakeholders.