Feds Seek to Promote Equity, COVID-19 Recovery, and ‘Systemic Change’ Through Grants

Tackling the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, creating a more welcoming environment for students, and supporting “systems change” through community engagement are key ingredients in a US Department of Education proposal that could soon impact hundreds of millions of dollars in federal spending.

The Ministry of Education’s six proposed priorities for discretionary grants, published Wednesday in the federal registry, also underscore the Ministry’s overarching approach to key issues affecting students, educators and schools.

These discretionary grants are funding streams that the department awards on a competitive basis. So it’s essentially up to the federal agencies who get the money, as opposed to the legal formulas that set the funding amount for programs like Title I to educate disadvantaged students. Applicants who include one or more of the priorities are more likely to receive funding from the department than those who don’t.

These programs typically make up a relatively small proportion of the total educational spending of Department K-12. In 2017, for example, discretionary grants received at least $ 700 million, while Title I alone received more than $ 16 billion in annual aid.

Still, it is a significant opportunity for the department to make its mark on educational programs. And the number of freely selectable grants can fluctuate quite a bit: the Obama administration’s first round of Race to the Top grants was over $ 4 billion.

The proposed priorities reflect the US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona’s “vision of education”, the department noted on the federal register. Achieving these goals requires a multi-faceted approach rather than isolated strategies.

“This approach to priorities provides a vision for system-level approaches that build capacity for long-term change,” explains the department.

Here are the six proposed priorities for Department of Education discretionary grants:

• “Addressing the effects of COVID-19 on students, faculty and faculties.”
• “Promote equal opportunities in student access to educational resources, opportunities and welcoming environments.”
• “Support a diverse teacher and professional growth to empower student learning.”
• “Meeting the social, emotional, and academic needs of students.”
• “Improving access to post-secondary education, affordability, graduation, and post-enrollment success.”
• “Strengthening cross-agency coordination and community engagement to promote systemic change.”

For COVID-19, the department wants to prioritize projects that would address the pandemic beyond the duration of the pandemic. Such projects could focus on needs assessments, meeting basic health and safety needs, and providing high-speed internet and connected devices to students.

To foster coordination between authorities and community engagement to effect far-reaching change, the department notes that successful grants could focus on connecting federal, state, and local efforts to, among other things, improve school diversity, Address judicial policy, community violence, and voting access and registration. .

“Ensuring that students and families have access to nutritious food, housing, health services, employment / financial services, and other community resources is critical to classroom success,” the federal register says.

The department will announce the final funding priorities at a later date. The public has until July 30 to comment on the proposals.

The Trump and Biden administrations differ widely on these educational grant priorities

None of the proposed priorities are necessarily surprising.

For example, President Joe Biden suggested “equity grants” in his 2022 budget draft to push more money to schools and counties with a relatively large proportion of disadvantaged students. And it’s hard to imagine a presidential administration not making pandemic recovery efforts a grant priority.

Each administration has its own approach to prioritizing the grant funds it controls.

Former Education Minister Betsy DeVos tried to prioritize funding of grant applications with an emphasis on STEM education, literacy and school choice. No wonder the proposed priorities of the department under Cardona are very different.

The Biden administration’s proposal would replace several Trump-era educational grant priorities, including one for Opportunity Zones advocated by the previous administration.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/feds-seek-to-promote-equity-covid-19-recovery-and-systemic-change-through-grants/