Texas School Grants

Admin | February 05, 2012 | Comments Off

Texas School Grants

Texas School Grants

SIG Grants, the US Department of Education’s School Improvement Grants, are meant to be used as a tool to improve the academic performance of schools that fall in the lowest 5% of a state's accountability measures under ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act). Charter schools have long been held up as models of the rigor and flexibility needed to help make failing schools academically successful. One of the four implementation models available for school improvement grants, the Restart Model, actually allows a local school district to close a failing school and reopen the campus as a charter school.

SIG grant recipients using the Transformation Model or the Turnaround Model of implementation are adopting characteristics of the stereotypical charter school (increased academic rigor, extended leaving time, etc). But fewer than four percent of the 850+ schools with SIG grants at the moment have adopted the Restart Model, which would allow them to actually become charter schools. One reason for the low number of Restart Model grants is simple: ten US states (Alabama, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Vermont, West Virginia, and Maine) simply don’t allow charter schools. Pressure from the Race to the Top grant program has made charter schools a political issue in those states. And some, like West Virginia with its new “innovation zone” state grants, have taken steps in the charter school direction. But at the moment the Restart Model simply isn’t an option in those states.