Davie County STEM Education
Science, Technology, Engineering & Math

On June 18, 2010, The US Department of Education posted on its website a summary of all Investing in Innovation (i3) applications received by the May 12, 2010 deadline. Davie County Schools was one of only four North Carolina school systems to apply for a developmental grant for Absolute Priority 1: Teacher and Principal Effectiveness. Of the 1698 i3 applications submitted nationwide, 357 were for developmental grants in the area of teacher and principal effectiveness. Others NC schools systems to apply for the same type and priority as Davie County are Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford County, and Iredell-Statesville. According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the announcements of grant recipients will be made in late July, 2010.

The Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund was established under section 14007 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to provide funding to support (1) local educational agencies (LEAs), and (2) nonprofit organizations in partnership with (a) one or more LEAs or (b) a consortium of schools. The purpose of the program is to provide competitive grants to applicants with a record of improving student achievement and attainment in order to expand the implementation of, and investment in, innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on improving student achievement or student growth, closing achievement gaps, decreasing dropout rates, increasing high school graduation rates, or increasing college enrollment and completion rates.

In order to receive i3 funds, each applicant must secure a 20% match from a private sector entity for the total grant package. Davie County Schools requested $3,751,200 from i3 funds and received a 20% matching pledge of $937,000 from the Mebane Charitable Foundation for a total grant proposal of $4,688,200.

Davie County Schools’ i3 grant application addresses Innovations that Support Effective Teachers and Principals. Titled STEM Cell Infusion (SCI), the design is to develop and implement dynamic solutions to the systemic challenges of providing high quality 21st Century STEM professional development for existing and beginning classroom teachers through technology integration. Our model forms three small professional learning communities, STEM Cells, populated with master, student and first year teachers who will, with the support of an additional Resource Cell, intervene with 130 teachers to model delivery of STEM curricula and instruction and provide individual teacher professional development.

SCIis designed to identify, recruit, develop, place, reward, and retain teachers through the development of high quality professional development inclusive of on-the-job training, coaching and mentoring. Our proposed outcomes are to increase the number of effective teachers to improve student achievement, especially that of high need students. The project aims to serve 4,800 Kindergarten-14 (Early College) students.

Stem Cells are independent professional learning communities which are not assigned to specific classrooms, but who embed themselves into the classrooms and professional learning communities in all of our schools. Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy will use quantitative data obtained from standardized state academic achievement assessments, conducted on an annual basis, as the primary data source. The evaluation will have three distinct components including: a process evaluation documenting the implementation process, a practice evaluation measuring changes in teacher practice, and an outcomes evaluation measuring student achievement and growth. Our intention, based on the findings generated from this project, is to bring the STEM Cell Infusion design to scale for implementation at state and/or national levels.

Today the Department of Education announced that 15 states and the District of Columbia will advance as finalists for phase 1 of the Race to the Top competition. Race to the Top is the Department’s $4.35 billion effort to dramatically re-shape America’s educational system to better engage and prepare our students for success in a competitive 21st century economy and workplace.

States competing for Race to the Top funds were asked to document past education reform successes, as well as outline plans to: extend reforms using college and career-ready standards and assessments; build a workforce of highly effective educators; create educational data systems to support student achievement; and turn around their lowest-performing schools.

The phase 1 finalists are: Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.

“These states are an example for the country of what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children,” Secretary Arne Duncan said.

“Everyone that applied for Race to the Top is charting a path for education reform in America” Duncan continued. “I salute all of the applicants for their hard work. And I encourage non-finalists to reapply for phase 2.”

The 16 finalists were chosen from among the 40 states and the District of Columbia that submitted applications for phase 1. Winners for phase 1 will be chosen from among the 16 finalists and announced in April. Applications for phase 2 will be due on June 1 of this year, with finalists announced in August and winners in September. The only states prohibited from applying in phase 2 are those that receive awards in phase 1.

How Finalists Were Chosen
Panels of 5 peer reviewers independently read and scored each state’s application. The panels then met in February to finalize their comments and submit scores. Each state’s score is the average of the five independent reviewers’ scores.

The Department arranged the applications in order from high to low scores and determined which applicants were the strongest competitors to invite back based on “natural breaks”—i.e. scoring gaps in the line-up. The top 16 applications were then selected as finalists. All 41 applicants from phase 1 will receive their peer reviewers’ comments and scores after the winners are announced in April. The Department will post the scores and applications on its Web site.

Choosing Winners from Among the Finalists
The finalists will be invited to DC in mid-March to present their proposals to the panel that reviewed their applications in depth during the initial stage, and to engage in Q&A discussions with the reviewers.

The purpose of the finalist stage is to allow reviewers to ensure that the state has the understanding, knowledge, capacity, and the will to truly deliver on what is proposed. The presentations will be videotaped and posted for viewing on the Department’s website at the end of Phase 1.

At the conclusion of the presentations, the reviewers will meet again to discuss each application, finalize scores and comments, and submit them to the Department. Again, the final score for each application will be an average of the five peer reviewers’ scores. The scores will be arranged in order from high to low and presented to Secretary Duncan for final selection.

Number of Winners & Award Sizes
The number of phase 1 winners will be determined by the strength of the applications. While the department does not have a predetermined amount of money to award in each phase of the competition, we expect no more than half of the money will be awarded in phase 1 to ensure a robust competition in phase 2.

“We are setting a high bar and we anticipate very few winners in phase 1. But this isn’t just about the money. It’s about collaboration among all stakeholders, building a shared agenda, and challenging ourselves to improve the way our students learn. I feel that every state that has applied is a winner—and the biggest winners of all are the students,” Duncan said.

Of the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funds provided under the Recovery Act, the Department will distribute approximately $4 billion directly to states to drive education reform and $350M to consortia of states that compete in a separate competition to create new college and career-ready assessments. The assessment competition is still in the design phase.

Based on Race to the Top’s early positive effect on national education reform, President Obama proposed to continue the program next year by requesting $1.35 billion in the Administration’s FY 2011 budget.