District Grant Contest Unveiled
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: May 22, 2012
School districts will be able to submit proposals for innovative educational programs this year to compete for federal grants of up to $25 million under a new national contest, part of the three-year-oldRace to the Top program. Rules for the competition were to be announced on Tuesday by the Department of Education.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants to bring learning “into the 21st century.”
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Like the department’s state-level competition for federal grants that preceded it, the program will require systems for measuring student progress and assessing teachers and administrators and will target low-income communities. Under the department’s rules, the schools included in each application must have at least 40 percent of students qualify for federally subsidized school lunches.
A spokesman for the department said it would look for programs that provide ways to tailor instruction to individual students.
“We need to take classroom learning beyond a one-size-fits-all model and bring it into the 21st century,” Arne