Education Jobs Bill; Investing in Innovation Grants;ACT College and Career Ready;NASA Summer of Opportunity;Job Opp
Greetings STEM Education Coalition Members!
Just a quick note to visit our new and improved (and yes, updated!) website at www.stemedcoalition.org We are continuing to update the site and if you would like your organization to be added to the list of STEM Ed Coalition members on the website please send an email to Robert Dreyer (robert.dreyer@nsta.org) with the full name of your organization and how you would like it to be listed on the website.
For your review today:
1. Jobs Bill: On August 11, the U.S. House of Representatives passed sweeping legislation that would provide up to $10 billion to states and districts to save teachers’ jobs. Funding from H.R. 1586, the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act, can be used to rehire teachers who have been laid off or to avert future teacher layoffs this fall. The Department of Education projects the $10 billion slated for education will support an estimated 160,000 education jobs nationwide. Another $16 billion will go to support Medicaid funding to states. The House gave final approval to the bill after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called lawmakers back to Washington, DC, from their summer break to vote on the legislation. The Senate had passed the bill the week before. President Obama immediately signed the bill into law, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan promised quick action to get the money out to states and districts. For more information, including a chart that outlines how much each state will receive, go to www.ed.gov.
2. Department Announces First Investing in Innovation (I3) Grants: On August 5, the U.S. Department of Education announced that 49 applications from school districts, nonprofit education organizations, and institutions of higher education have been selected from a pool of nearly 1,700 applicants for potential funding under the Investing in Innovation (i3) program.
The 49 proposals were selected by the Education Department based on recommendations from independent peer review panels. The grants fall into three categories: up to $50 million per “scale-up” grant for programs that have a strong track record of success; up to $30 million per “validation” grant for growing programs with emerging evidence of success; and up to $5 million per “development” grant for promising ideas. Included in the winning applicants are 9 STEM-related projects. Four are “validation” grants and the other five are “development” grants. For more details, visit www2.ed.gov/programs/innovation/index.html.
3. College and Career Readiness in Math and Science: ACT-tested U.S. high school graduates appear to be making slow but steady progress at becoming ready for college and career, according to the recently released ACT annual Condition of College and Career Readiness report for 2010. See the attached document; the full report can be found at http://www.act.org/news/data/10/
4. Announcement of Opportunity to Participate in NASA’s Summer of Innovation Project. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is requesting information from entities interested in participating in its Summer of Innovation project. SoI engages the nation’s middle school youth in intensive science, technology, engineering and mathematics experiencesthat will have an impact on their academic performance, choice of STEM coursework, degree programs and, eventually, career path. NASA is looking for partners to develop creative ways to help achieve one or more SoI goals and to increase the impact and visibility of SoI.
For more information about SoI and to view the announcement, visit http://www.nasa.gov/soi. Responses are requested by Friday, Sept. 3, 2010.
Additional questions about this opportunity may be directed to soipartners@nasa.gov.
