A gloomy federal analysis of the Obama administration鈥檚 multibillion dollar School Improvement Grant program missed the boat, according to a report released last week by FutureEd, a nonpartisan think tank at Georgetown University.
The new report was written by two former U.S. Department of Education officials鈥擜lan Ginsburg and Marshall S. Smith. They say the earlier report, commissioned by the Education Department鈥檚 Institute of Education Sciences, ignored more-localized studies that gave a brighter picture of SIG鈥檚 success. It also had some design flaws and missed a chance to communicate best practices in states and districts where SIG worked, they say.
The IES report found that the SIG grant, which poured more than $7 billion into low-performing schools, had no significant impact on math and reading scores or high school graduation. The IES study鈥檚 authors dispute the new findings.
