Program Announcement: Chronically Low-Performing Schools Research Initiative CFDA 84.305G

Program Officers:
Dr. Allen Ruby
Allen.Ruby@ed.gov
(202) 219-1591

Dr. David Sweet
David.Sweet@ed.gov
(202) 219-1748

Purpose

To increase research efforts to improve chronically low-performing schools, the Institute is launching its Chronically Low-Performing Schools Research Initiative (Low-Performing Schools Initiative). For the Low-Performing Schools Initiative, the Institute invites applications to develop interventions that target specific problems faced by chronically low-performing schools and test the promise of strategies for successfully addressing those problems within a relatively short time period. Over the five-year project period, grantees will be expected to develop and test a number of practices that principals of low-performing schools, with support from their district, could implement to improve their schools. The Institute views this approach as distinct from comprehensive school reform strategies. That is, the purpose of this initiative is not to generate a single approach to simultaneously address all of the problems that a low-performing school faces. Rather, the purpose of this research initiative is to systematically develop and test practices that could contribute to a menu of practices that principals, with support from their district (or districts with the support of their principals), could choose from to target specific challenges in their persistently low-performing schools. The Institute realizes that chronically low-performing schools may require more than the practices developed and piloted under this Initiative to fully address the causes of their persistent low performance. At the same time, the Institute recognizes that districts and principals often do not have access to research-based practices to address specific problems in their low-performing schools. By developing a set of such practices, this Initiative seeks to provide them with such options.