Personnel Development Preservice Programs

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) announces the Personnel Development to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities: Special Education Preservice Program Improvement Grants. For more information, visit the Special Education Funding Opportunities webpage. Grant is due July 14, 2010.

Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education

The U.S. Department of Education announces the release of the Fund for the Improvement of Post-secondary Education (FIPSE). The Comprehensive Program supports innovative grants and cooperative agreements to improve postsecondary education. It supports reforms, innovations, and significant improvements of postsecondary education that respond to problems of national significance and serve as national models.

Invitational Priorities:

1. Centers of excellence for teacher preparation as described in section 242 of the HEA.

2. University sustainability initiatives as described in section 881 of HEA.

3. Rural development initiatives for rural-serving colleges and universities as described in section 861 of HEA.

4. Initiatives to assist highly qualified minorities and women to acquire doctoral degrees in fields where they are underrepresented as described in section 807 of HEA.

5. Modeling and simulation programs as described in section 891 of HEA.

6. Higher education consortia to design and offer interdisciplinary programs that focus on poverty and human capability as described in section 74(a)(11) of HEA.

7. Innovative postsecondary models to improve college matriculation and graduation rates, including activities to facilitate transfer of credits between institutions of higher education, alignment of curricula on a state or multi-state level between high schools and colleges and between two-year and four-year postsecondary programs, dual enrollment and articulation agreements and partnerships between high schools and community colleges, and partnerships between K-12 organizations and colleges for college pathway programs.

8. Activities to develop or enhance educational partnerships and cross-cultural cooperation between postsecondary educational institutions in the United States and similar institutions in Haiti.

Amount: $750,000

Date due: July 29, 2010

For more information, click here.

AAC&U Call for Proposals

Engaged STEM Learning: From Promising to Pervasive Practices
March 24-26, 2011
Miami, Florida
Call for Proposals Deadline: August 31, 2010

Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), in partnership with AAC&U, announces the 2011 Network for Academic Renewal conference, Engaged STEM Learning: From Promising to Pervasive Practices. This interactive, hands-on conference will help campuses adapt, scale up, and sustain effective practices in STEM teaching and learning.

The conference is designed for participants who wish to develop faculty and institutional leadership in STEM reform, broaden student participation and success in STEM fields, better assess engaged STEM learning in both the majors and general education.

Learn more about this conference and the call for proposals online.

New grants on Library & Museum webpage

Two National Historical Projects grants posted on the Library & Museum Funding Opportunity webpage. Both focus on archival materials.

Field-initiated Research & Evaluation (OJJDP)

The Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Field Initiated Research and Evaluation (FIRE) Program funds research and evaluation that address how the juvenile justice system responds to juvenile delinquency. For more information, visit the Criminal Justice Funding Opportunity webpage.

BIC 4 GOOD Sustainable grants

BIC 4 GOOD Grants are available for young people (up to 25 years old) who have created a sustainable community action program, project or organization. For more info, visit Student Services Funding Opportunity webpage.

PGE Foundation Grants

The PGE Foundation is committed to improving the quality of life in Oregon by awarding grants in the areas of education, healthy families, and arts and culture. The remaining 2010 deadlines for letters of inquiry are July 13 and November 16. Visit the Creative Arts or Teacher Education or Student Services Funding Opportunity webpages.

Healthy Living Grants offered by AMA Foundation

Healthy Living Grants of $5,000 are being offered by the American Medical Association Foundation. Proposals are due July 15, 2010. For more information, visit the Health & PE Funding Opportunity webpage.

Salmon Recovery Grants

The National Fish & Wildlife Foundation is accepting applications through the Community Salmon Fund in support of salmon recovery in Washington State. For more information, visit the Natural Sciences & Mathematics Funding Opportunity webpage.

The Condition of Education 2010 (NCES)

The National Center for Education Statistics today released The Condition of Education 2010, a Congressionally mandated report to the nation on education in America today. It covers all aspects of education, with 49 indicators that include findings on enrollment trends, demographics, and outcomes.

The report projects that public school enrollment will rise from 49 million in 2008 to 52 million by 2019, with the largest increase expected in the South. Over the past decade, more students attended both charter schools and high-poverty schools (those in which more than 75 percent of the students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch). One in six U.S. students attends a high-poverty school; and the number of charter school students has tripled since 1999.

This year’s report features a special section that looks closer at these high-poverty schools in America, examining the types and locations of schools, the characteristics of the students and their teachers and principals; and student achievement. It finds a wide and persistent gap in educational achievement.

Report findings include:

• In 2007-2008, about 20 percent of all elementary students and 9 percent of secondary school students attended high-poverty schools, compared with 15 percent and 5 percent respectively in 1999-2000.
• The reading achievement gap between low- and high-poverty 8th-grade students was 34 points in 2009 and the mathematics achievement gap was 38 points.
• In 2007-08, about 28 percent of high school graduates from high-poverty schools attended 4-year institutions after graduation, compared with 52 percent of high school graduates from low-poverty schools, based on reports from school administrators.
• Between 1971 and 2009, the percentage of White, Black and Hispanic 25- to 29-year-olds who had a bachelor’s degree increased. But, during this period, the gap in bachelor’s degree attainment between Blacks and Whites increased from 12 to 18 percentage points and the gap between Hispanics and Whites increased from 14 to 25 percentage points.

To view the report in its entirety, visit: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/

Reprinted from NCES.