The School Improvement Grant (SIG) is a critically important program. It is, debatably, the lynchpin for the Obama administration’s ESEA reauthorization strategy.
If the Administration had its way, it would no longer require the current seven-year cascade of interventions that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) currently requires. Instead, the federally required interventions would be limited only to those schools that the state has identified as its persistently lowest-achieving schools (PLAS), and that limited role would be quite muscular to assure that significant changes occur in these schools. The administration would rather be more focused and effective with their funding. Read more
