Educational Grants School Districts Across the Country

Educational Grants

School districts across the country are experiencing shrinking budgets. One way to increase the funds available for education is to apply for educational grants. They can take many forms, including those requiring rigorous research designs as well as others that might provide funds for equipment or the money to implement promising but unproven programs.

Two organizations that provide educational grant money are the Beaumont Foundation of America and the Institute of Education Sciences.

The Institute of Educational Services (IES) requires an extensive application and applies rigorous scientific research principles when considering which applications to fund. Their specific focus is to increase the body of knowledge regarding best practices in education. Their goal is to fund research being done in the "practice community" -- that is, schools and school districts (IES, 2005). They have a preference for rigorously controlled studies that involve students from multiple schools who are randomly assigned to either the intervention group or the control group. To support this rigorous approach, they provide substantial funding for up to three years. They will consider a quasi=experimental design under certain circumstances. In addition, they require that the team conducting the research demonstrate the competency to conduct the study, including statistical competency. They require a literature search and other justification for the approach to be used in the study.

The Beaumont Foundation takes a markedly different approach to grants. They specifically provide technology to schools in the form of laptop computers and other technological equipment. Their intent is to support the school's technology program, not replace it. In other words, the school must have educational goals beyond simply replacing or increasing their computers. The Beaumont Foundation specifically targets schools from lower economic status areas; they require that 50% of the students be eligible for the National School Lunch program. Since they will provide funds to small private schools, they require that the school have been in operation for three years.

While both organizations either require or strongly encourage a "letter of interest," the rest of the requirements differ greatly. Beaumont does not fund pure research, making their grants markedly different than those from the IES. Beaumont requires the school to find a collaboration partner in the community, and requires that the school have a specific technology plan.

What both these organizations have in common is a need for justification. Each granting organization has specific requirements. Meeting those requirements demonstrates that they are justified in providing the money or material they provide.

The expectations for each group are realistic. The goal of the IES is to fund research that will clearly demonstrate some educational "best practice" and thus increase the body of such research from which educators can draw. Their standards are rigorous and demanding, but they provide both the funding and the time needed to complete such carefully constructed programs. Beaumont's goals are simpler -- to increase availability of technology in schools.

Both organizations provide detailed information regarding the information to be included in successful grant applications. The IES information includes detailed information regarding the information needed on the problem to be tackled in the research; how it will be evaluated, the personnel who will participate in the study and their roles (including detailed curriculum vitae), and the resources needed. They state how many pages long each section should be. Their emphasis on sound research methodology is reflected in this as they require 14-17 pages of detailed information regarding prior evidence to support the approach to be used; a detailed description of the educational intervention to be applied in the study; clearly stated evaluation questions; the rationale for using the staff chosen to participate; rationale for data collection methodology; and detailed information on the statistical analysis methods to be used.

Beaumont's requirements are simpler to meet but also clearly spelled out. They require information about the organization, details on their current technology status; a project description; their goals and objectives; information on the team to implement the new technology; information on staff development to support the new technology; information on their community partnership(s); their plan to evaluate this program; and a statement about sustainability regarding the use of the equipment. Each section provides a specified number of points toward a total, and those points are used to determine who gets the grants.

The two granting organizations are similar in one way: they both give very clear expectations about what they want in applications. However, the two organizations are markedly dissimilar in important ways. One is research-based and one is not. IES wants to produce rigorous research while Beaumont's goal is to get more computers into disadvantaged schools. The amounts of money (or value of material supplied): up to $500,000 for IES, and up to $25,000 for Beaumont.