Federal officials are sponsoring a new grant competition designed to promote collaboration between charter and traditional public schools that want to work together to improve academic achievement and overall educational services.
The grant—with $500,000 in total funding—is being run out of the U.S. Department of Education’s charter schools program, which also oversees a number of larger competitions that support the replication of high-performing charters, the planning and design of charters, and other efforts.
The awards are likely to range from $50,000 to $200,000 each, the department says. Department officials say many of the strategies for collaboration, such as coordinating lesson planning for schools with similar populations, examining how school climate could be improved, or arranging regular meetings to share ideas, won’t necessarily cost a lot of money.
