Four multi-state consortia will receive a total of $19.1 million in demonstration grants under the new Star Schools program, the Education Department was expected to announce this week.
Grants of $5.6 million each were awarded to the ti-in Network Inc., of San Antonio, the nation’s largest private provider of educational programming by satellite, and the Satellite Educational Resources Consortium, a newly formed partnership of state education agencies and public broadcasters.
The Midlands Consortium, based at Oklahoma State Univer4sity, received a $5.5-million grant, while Technical Education Research Centers Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., received $2.4 million.
The Star Schools program is designed to encourage telecommunications partnerships to disseminate educational programming in mathematics, science, and foreign languages.
Grants were awarded to stimulate “very discrete and different kinds of applications” of learning technologies, a spokesman for the department said.
Sixty-eight partnerships had submitted applications for the awards.