Funding

Schools use a variety of funding sources to offset the cost of training. Although grants can vary widely from state to state, the following list covers many of the broad funding areas.

Professional Development

Teacher Quality Research grants, available from the US Department of Education (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/tqpartnership/index.html), provides national leadership in expanding fundamental knowledge and understanding of education from early childhood education through post-secondary study

Federal Funding

Grants.gov provides a search engine for federal grant opportunities. You can also sign up to receive notifications by email. Visit their website for information, www.grants.gov.

The U.S. Department of Education publishes funding forecasts on its website at www.ed.gov/fund/grant/find/edlite-forecast.html.

Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) and Character Education

Federal, state, and local grants which help support teachers to integrate SEL and character development into their classroom work. Future Educators for Character grants, available from the Character Education Partnershiphelp support innovative approaches for preparing new teachers to integrate sound character development into their classroom work. Learn more about this program at www.character.org.

School Improvement

Title I basic grants, available through the US Department of Education (www.ed.gov/index.jhtml), improve basic programs in local school districts with high numbers or percentages of poor children.

Title V Innovative Program grants, available from the US Department of Education (www.ed.gov/index.jhtml), support local education reform consistent with state efforts and implementation of promising educational reform and school improvement programs. Also available are "Reading First" funds, Title VI, Title VII, IDEA and NCLB Funds.

Schools and districts have used other grants available at the state or local level. These include Violence Reduction grants, Best Practices grants, Special Education grants, Restorative Justice grants, Restructuring grants, At-Risk, Bilingual/ESL and Migrant Funds.