Funding, Grants & Awards

ED Grants $4.1 Million to Charter School Organizations

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 03/19/15

The United States Department of Education has awarded $4.1 million in grants to six organizations as part of its Charter Schools Program's National Leadership Activities initiative.

The three-year grants are designed to "help strengthen charter schools and charter school authorizers, while also improving capacity to serve students with disabilities and English learners," according to a news release.

Some of the funds will be used for teacher professional development or on-site coaching aimed at improving services for charter school students with disabilities or who are English language learners, as well as to create systems designed to be shared across charter schools for finding qualified teachers and experts.

Other funds will be used to "help charter school authorizers conduct rigorous reviews of school applications to ensure quality, as well as conduct meaningful oversight of charter schools using multiple sources of data and identify and close underperforming charter schools," according to information released by ED.

Recipients and their grant totals include:

• Alameda County Office of Education, $799,659;
• California Charter Schools Association, $636,954;
• Illinois Network of Charter Schools, $580,975;
• Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, $506,603;
• National Association of Charter School Authorizers, $799,683; and
• New Schools for New Orleans, $799,198.

Abstracts of the winning grants are available at ed.gov.