As Culture Wars Spread in Schools, NJEA’s Teacher-Funded PAC Places Big Bets in Next Week’s Election
November 3, 2023
Five Instances Of School Staff Behaving Badly–In the Last Week
November 3, 2023Better Late Than Never: Education Department Awards Tutoring Grants
The New Jersey Department of Education today announced approximately $41 million in preliminary grant awards for the implementation of High Impact Tutoring in approximately 240 New Jersey school districts to implement highly effective, evidence-based strategies that promote learning acceleration among students.
The grant notifications were due October 11th but came four and a half weeks later. It remains unclear if districts will be required to solicit bids for tutoring vendors, a subject of much frustration for district leaders; the DOE has yet to clarify this issue.
High Impact Tutoring is designed to enable school districts, charter schools, and renaissance school projects, to work with educational service vendors, nonprofit organizations, and colleges and universities to provide tutoring services at scale and provide educational assistance to students. School districts, charter schools, and renaissance school projects are also able to utilize existing staff for specific tutoring programs outside of regular classroom instruction.
“With the award of High Impact Tutoring grants to our schools, we are not just investing in classrooms, we are investing in the potential of every student,” said Dr. Angelica Allen-McMillan, Acting Commissioner of Education. “The New Jersey Department of Education is determined to accelerate the academic growth of students across the state. This initiative will be a powerful tool that can help schools empower generations to reach greater heights.”
The approximately $41 million in round one of preliminary High Impact Tutoring grant awards are supported through federal funding allocated in New Jersey’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget. The grants focus on research-based approaches that have been proven to lead to substantial learning gains, which include: frequent, extended periods of tutoring with individuals or small groups of students; subject matter that is aligned to state learning standards; and customized, data-driven instruction based on students’ data, provided by highly qualified tutors who regularly collaborate with students’ teachers.
For the complete list of grant-winners, click here.
[photo credit] Flickr: Phil Murphy
1 Comment
The bungling of grants, with their unjustified delays, is a case in point of how NJDOE operates at present. The department’s interest is more in scheduling rounds of senseless meetings (such as why holiday ornaments should not be hung from cubicle walls) than viable implementation that helps students improve in the basics. Mark my words. This will turn out as little more than another, useless blast of hot air, with its administrators giving their predictable “oh, well” shrugs.