The sorry saga behind state’s School Improvement Grants
Blog by Doug McRae/Thought on Public Education
The federal stimulus package for K-12 schools this year included $416 million to California to turn around persistently low-achieving schools via “School Improvement Grants.” Because of bureaucratic bungling and policymaker failures, almost $100 million of the money is being misdirected. The money was to be distributed on a competitive basis to the lowest 5 percent of schools in Program Improvement – those eligible for federal Title I aid that hadn’t met their academic targets under No Child Left Behind. With roughly 3,700 California schools eligible, the identification of the 180 to 190 schools that were to compete for SIG money was a bad news/ good news/ bad news story. (more…)