II.D: Investing in Innovation (i3)

Provide support to local educational agencies (LEAs), and nonprofit organizations

Other Information:

i3 is an innovative grant fund established as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). It provides support to local educational agencies (LEAs), and nonprofit organizations in partnership with (a) one or more LEAs or (b) a consortium of schools. Applicants must address one of the four areas that are driving the Obama administration’s school reform agenda: • Supporting effective teachers and principals; • Improving the use of data to accelerate student achievement; • Complementing the implementation of standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and careers; and • Turning around persistently low-performing schools. Unlike other federal grant programs where evidence is a selection criterion, in the i3 program evidence is a formal eligibility requirement. The i3 regulations also include specific definitions for what constitutes strong evidence and moderate evidence and will award three types of grants based on these three levels of evidence. Development grants will require a reasonable hypothesis and will be aimed at helping develop fresh ideas, Validation grants will require moderate evidence and will be aimed at validating and spreading promising programs on a State or regional scale, and Scale Up grants will require strong evidence and will be aimed at bringing proven programs to national, regional, or State scale. The Department expects to make Development grants of up to $5 million each; Validation grants of up to $30 million each; Scale Up grants of up to $50 million each. Complete information on the i3 program can be found at the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) web site. In keeping with the innovative nature of this program, i3 has modeled transparency principles throughout its development. The Department published the notice of proposed priorities (NPP) to obtain public comment, hosted webinars following the NPP publication to answer questions, and held pre-application meetings in three cities (Denver, Baltimore, and Atlanta) to further engage the public in the competition. These sessions were also made available via webinar. Approximately 1000 people attended the meetings, with an additional 2000 participants via webinar. The Department has applied transparency principles to the peer review process. An Open Call was made for peer reviewers, including visible posting on ED.gov, and approximately 1000 applications have been received for peer reviewer positions. To further support innovation, the Office of Innovation and Improvement has launched the Open Innovation Portal, a public forum for all who wish to participate in creating opportunities for partnership and local private and public funding. This web portal connects grant applicants, stakeholders, funders and other participants to cultivate innovative ideas related to education. Through this portal, the Department hopes that partnerships will develop that will accelerate the development, identification, and broad use of innovative products, practices, and processes to improve education in schools. The Open Innovation Portal, available at http://innovation.ed.gov, provides a public forum for all who wish to participate in creating opportunities for partnership and local private and public funding – potentially multiplying many times over the federal funding opportunity. The portal allows the posting, commenting and scoring of ideas. It carries additional features such as inclusion of video clips, idea leaderboards and challenges from non-profit partners. As of March 29, 2010, the Open Innovation Portal has 2851 members. A total of 76 ideas have been submitted, with 88% having received at least one question, answer, or comment. An active network is developing, with 716 network requests, 455 private messages, 254 idea questions, and 74 idea comments. The Department is encouraged by the early success of this innovative collaboration tool.

Stakeholder(s):

• Local Educational Agencies (LEAs)


• Nonprofit Organizations

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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