Education Funding News in Brief

GAO Faults Education Dept. on Grant Monitoring

By Alyson Klein — May 30, 2017 1 min read
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The U.S. Department of Education did not do a sufficient job of documenting its monitoring of key federal competitive grants, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

As a result, about $21 million in federal grants from fiscal 2015—during the Obama administration—were missing correct documentation, the GAO found. (That’s a relatively small chunk of the department’s nearly $70 billion budget.) The administration used competitive grants like Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and Promise Neighborhoods to further its favorite policy ideas.

The GAO looked at a sample of 75 grants. Almost all of them, 69, were incomplete in some way, according to the report.

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A version of this article appeared in the May 30, 2017 edition of Education Week as GAO Faults Education Dept. on Grant Monitoring

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