A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

  FOR RELEASE                    Contact:  Melinda Kitchell   November 28, 1994                          (202) 401-1008

GRANTS TO SHARE EDUCATION SUCCESSES

Proven teaching tools and strategies to help improve children's learning are now available to schools and teachers through the National Diffusion Network (NDN) under nearly $14 million of support from the U.S. Department of Education. The network strives to improve educational opportunities and achievement by providing schools access to effective education programs, products and practices.

"These grants and the projects they support can help communities find concrete examples of good practice that schools can use to help students reach the National Education Goals," said Sharon Robinson, assistant secretary for educational research and improvement. "Providing information about what works in schools, motivating students and improving student achievement is what the NDN is all about."

Projects included in the network may address virtually any education concern, including reading, writing, science or mathematics; vocational or career education; bilingual, early childhood or special education. To become part of the network, a project must be tested with students and teachers and it must convince a panel of researchers, educators and department staff that it works and can be used successfully at other sites. Each year NDN programs train some 90,000 teachers and involve nearly five million students.

This year the department awarded one new grant for a "state facilitator" in Palau who will help schools find and adopt projects to meet local needs. Earlier in FY94, 57 grants totaling almost $7 million were awarded to continue state facilitator efforts that began in previous years.

Nearly $2 million for 26 new grants are for "developer demonstrators" -- charged with spreading the word about their own effective projects. Earlier in FY94, 63 awards totaling nearly $5 million went to continue such projects that began in FY93.

The NDN programs are authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Improving America's School Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-382).

-###-