Research suggests that academic competitions provide opportunities for content differentiation as well as emotional growth. Participating students learn how to cope with subjectivity, engage in friendly competition with their peers, get exposed to role models in their field of interest, and build resilience. With limited resources, school…

The Social Spending Innovation Research (SSIR) proposal seeks to replicate, in social spending, the great success of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program in technology development. The SBIR program funds technology development by entrepreneurial small companies. The program has spawned breakthrough technologies in diverse areas…

The list of 61 finalists for the latest Race to the Top competition shows that the U.S. Department of Education was successful in enticing high-scoring applications from districts in rural America and in states that had not shared in the Race to the Top bounty before. But whether the ultimate winners, which will be announced this month, will be…

Demand is far outpacing resources in one hot segment of the education innovation market, as districts, schools, and nonprofit organizations pitch reform proposals worth $12.8 billion for competitive grants to be awarded under the federal Investing in Innovation Fund, or "i3"--nearly 20 times what the U.S. Department of Education has available. The…

As peer reviewers for the U.S. Department of Education begin to comb through the thousands of pages of applications for $4 billion in federal Race to the Top Fund grants, they'll be under pressure to determine which are most worthy of funding: those that promise the most, or those with the best chance of delivering. In a competition whose criteria…

In November 2008, a mass email sent by the department chairman arrived in the inboxes of the imaging and photographic technology students at the Rochester Institute of Technology. A great opportunity was in store for four lucky students. The department had received a request for proposals (RFP) sent by NASA to colleges around the United States…

The Advisory Committee was created by Congress in the "Higher Education Amendments of 1986" to be an independent and nonpartisan source of knowledge, advice, and counsel to Congress and the Secretary of Education on federal, state, and institutional postsecondary student assistance. One of the most important analytical directives in the…

The Improving Teacher Quality Program recently concluded its 2007 competition to select grantees who will provide high-quality teacher professional development over the next several years. Teachers in grades K-2 were the focus of this year's Request for Proposals (RFP). As required in the last two rounds of competition, the selected projects must…