“To give our children the chance to live out their dreams in a world that's never been more competitive, we will equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries. We'll provide new computers, new technology, and new training for teachers so that students in Chicago and Boston can compete with kids in Beijing for the high-tech, high-wage jobs of the future.” -President Obama, January 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provides approximately $100 billion for education with the short-term goal of stimulating the economy and the long-term goal of strengthening education and supporting reform. ARRA presents an unprecedented opportunity to implement systemic school reform programs in our state’s highest need schools - improving the way teachers teach and students learn.
SETDA, a national educational organization representing all 50 states believes that we must keep the hopefulness and potential of the students in first grade who graduate in 2020 in the forefront as we consider the vast investments in the future of learning. America’s students have the potential to compete effectively in the global economy and our educational system needs to respond to the needs of these future innovators by supporting them with modern learning environments and proven teaching strategies.
ARRA provides a huge opportunity to create effective, viable, and robust reform in education that will improve the way teachers teach and students learn. SETDA, with its members, has created a variety of resources that address the opportunities created by ARRA:
ARRA Investments in Technology, Innovation, and K-12 Reform: The Digital Education Funding Cliff
Additional ARRA Information
- Race to the Top (RTTT) Assessment Competition
Upon initial review, the recently released RTTT Assessment Competition RFPs include support for technology in both the review criteria and in the requirements for all winners. Three hunfred fifty million dollars of the RTTT funds have been allocated for two assessment competitions, one for English-Language Arts and Math in elementary and middle schools and the other for high schools. SETDA developed a draft document highlighting the educational technology language in the RFPs for reference. April 8, 2010 - Education Secretary Duncan has announced the availability of the grant application for the highly anticipated Investing in Innovation (i3) program. These grants will support local districts and nonprofit organizations, working in partnership with several districts and/or several schools as they seek to implement educational innovations with promising or demonstrated effective outcomes for students. Through this program, competitive grants will be awarded 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
- Increasing college enrollment and completion rates
In addition, SETDA welcomes each ARRA EETT Competitive recipient to complete in the SETDA ARRA LEA Competitive Grant Survey.
