Service Learning Partnership Grant (Teachers & Schools)

With the support of State Farm, Habitat for Humanity International is offering a Service-Learning Partnership Grant program to provide funds for teachers and schools interested in developing and implementing service-learning projects in partnership with their local Habitat affiliate.

For the 20010-11 school year, teachers and local Habitat affiliates can jointly apply for a one-year grant of up to $7,000 to cover educational expenses associated with the service-learning project. Of that, a maximum of $5,000 may be used as support for the local Habitat affiliate. In addition, partnerships can apply for an additional travel scholarship grant of $1,000 for teachers and affiliate staff to attend either the National Service-Learning Conference presented by the National Youth Leadership Council or the Youth Leadership Conference hosted by Habitat for Humanity International.

Amount: $7,000

Date due: May 15, 2010

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IES Analysis of Longitudinal Data

To promote the use of State and district longitudinal data sets for identifying factors associated with better education outcomes, the Institute of Education Sciences has created the Analysis of Longitudinal Data to Support State and Local Education Reform research topic (Analysis of Longitudinal Data).

Grants provided under the Analysis of Longitudinal Data topic will support researchers in collaboration with State and local education agencies (SEAs and LEAs) to analyze State or district longitudinal data in order to explore the malleable factors¹ (i.e., factors that can be changed by the education system) that may be associated with better education outcomes (e.g., student achievement, high school graduation rates, postsecondary enrollment and completion), as well as mediators and moderators of the relations between these factors and education outcomes.

The long term outcome of this program will be the identification of malleable factors that can contribute to the development of new education interventions, modification of existing ones, and identification of interventions that may deserve more rigorous evaluation. A second outcome will be an increased use of longitudinal data systems by SEAs and LEAs for decision making and an increased capacity through research collaborations to use them.

Amount: Varies depending upon IES Goal

Date due: June 24, 2010; September 16, 2010

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Migrant Education Family Literacy program

The Migrant Education Even Start (MEES) Family Literacy program is intended to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy of migratory agricultural or fishing families by improving the educational opportunities of these families through the integration of early childhood education, adult literacy or adult basic education, and parenting education into a unified family literacy program. This program is implemented through cooperative activities that build on high-quality existing community resources to create a new range of educational services for the most-in-need migratory agricultural or fishing families, promote the academic achievement of migratory children and adults, assist migratory children in meeting challenging State content standards and challenging State achievement standards, and use instructional programs based on scientifically based reading research on preventing and overcoming reading difficulties for children and adults. NOTE: Competitive preference priority is for "novice applicants" (those who have not received a migrant education award in the past).

Amount: $400,000/year

Date due: May 14, 2010

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Math & Science Partnerships (MSP)

The Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program is a major research and development effort that supports innovative partnerships to improve K-12 student achievement in mathematics and science. MSP projects are expected to raise the achievement levels of all students and significantly reduce achievement gaps in the mathematics and science performance of diverse student populations. In order to improve the mathematics and science achievement of the Nation's students, MSP projects contribute to what is known in mathematics and science education and serve as models that have a sufficiently strong evidence/research base to improve the mathematics and science education outcomes for all students. NSF's MSP program coordinates its effort with programs of the U.S. Department of Education in the expectation that effective innovations in mathematics and science education will be disseminated into wider practice.

Through this solicitation, NSF seeks to support five types of awards:

• Targeted Partnerships focus on studying and solving teaching and learning issues within a specific grade range or at a critical juncture in education, and/or within a specific disciplinary focus in mathematics or the sciences;
• Institute Partnerships - Teacher Institutes for the 21st Century focus on meeting national needs for teacher leaders/master teachers who have deep knowledge of disciplinary content for teaching and are fully prepared to be school- or district-based intellectual leaders in mathematics or the sciences;
• MSP-Start Partnerships are for awardees new to the MSP program, especially from minority-serving institutions, community colleges and primarily undergraduate institutions, to support the necessary data analysis, project design, evaluation and team building activities needed to develop a full MSP Targeted or Institute Partnership;
• Phase II Partnerships are for prior NSF MSP Partnership awardees to continue implementation on specific innovative areas of their work where evidence of the potential for significant positive impact is clearly documented. The intent is that there will be focused efforts to carry out the necessary research to advance knowledge and understanding in the specific area(s); and
• Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance (RETA) projects (a) study the relationships among MSP activities and student learning using theoretically informed, methodologically rigorous methods; (b) develop and validate instruments of teacher or student knowledge that MSPs and others can use to assess the impact of their work, or (c) provide technical assistance to MSP projects to help them rigorously evaluate their work.

Amount: Varies depending upon type of project

Date due: July 8, 2010

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Jordan Fundamentals Innovation Grants

A philanthropic project of the Jordan Brand, a division of Nike, Inc., the Jordan Fundamentals Grant Program awards a total of $1 million annually to teachers across the United States who motivate and inspire students (grades one through 12) to achieve excellence. The grant program is designed to recognize outstanding teaching and instructional creativity in public schools that serve economically disadvantaged students.

To be eligible, schools must be public schools with at least 50 percent of their student population eligible for free and reduced-fee lunch. All public schools (regular, district, regional, charter, pilot, special, and alternative) in the fifty states and the District of Columbia are eligible to apply for a grant. Private schools are not eligible.

Any activity that a teacher proposes is eligible for funding if it impacts student success. Applicants must develop an educational approach that supports improved student academic achievement and social/emotional/behavioral interventions through student engagement, student teacher relationships, and/or building the capacity of teachers. Applicants are encouraged to involve students in the development of this plan or unit.

Amount: $5,000

Date due: April 30, 2010

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Fostering Interdisciplinary Research on Education (FIRE)

FIRE is a new strand of the Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) program (NSF 09-601) and it is anticipated that after this first competition, FIRE will be incorporated into the REESE solicitation. The FIRE program seeks to facilitate the process by which scholars can cross disciplinary boundaries to acquire the skills and knowledge that would improve their abilities to conduct rigorous research on STEM learning and education.

The primary goal of the strand is to facilitate the development of innovative theoretical, methodological, and analytic approaches to understanding complex STEM education issues of national importance and, by so doing, make progress toward solving them. A secondary goal of the strand is to broaden and deepen the pool of investigators engaged in STEM educational research. In order to address this goal, investigators must pair with a mentoring scientist in a to-be-learned field of interest. Proposals therefore have both a research and a professional development component. Investigators may apply at any point in their post-graduate careers.

Amount: $400,000 (across two years)

Date due: May 20, 2010

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