Archive for Awards and grants

Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) has announced the recipients of the third annual RIF Program Excellence Honors 2008, sponsored by MetLife Foundation. The 25 honored programs and their volunteers will be recognized by RIF during a celebration in Washington, D.C., June 16–18, for successfully partnering with outside organizations to advance children’s literacy in their communities.

The 25 programs were selected from a pool of approximately 3,500 RIF programs nationwide. Partners include public schools, Indian reservations, sororities, fraternities, libraries, television stations, corporations, and law firms, among others. Children in these programs benefit from having reading role models that included NBA players, teen tutors, and grandparents. Learn more about the award winners on the RIF website.

Creative teachers are rewarded each year by the Kids In Need Foundation with grants to fund exceptional classroom projects. The Teacher Grants program, open to all kindergarten through twelfth grade teachers in the United States, has awarded $1 million in grants since the program began in 1997.

Dan Legg, chair of the Teacher Grants Committee, said the committee “looks for high quality projects that convey information to students in new and interesting ways. We evaluate the grant requests according to certain criteria, but the proposals that make us want to be in the classrooms participating in those projects are the ones that are invariably funded.”

This year, more than $100,000 is available to award. Grant amounts are between $100 and $500. Applications for the 2008 Kids In Need Teacher Grants will be available after July 15 and can be submitted online between July 15 and September 30 on the Kids in Need website.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, which honor young people for outstanding volunteer service to their communities, will be broadcast live on the web from Washington, D.C., on May 5 at 12:45pm Eastern time.

Created in 1995 by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), the awards constitute the United States’ largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteering. Over the past 13 years, the program honored more than 80,000 young volunteers at the local, state, and national level. To reigster for the webcast, visit the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards website.

Despite struggling with learning throughout her early school years, Lenora (“Lenny”) Somervell of Brasstown, North Carolina was not formally classified as having a learning disability (LD) in reading and math until her freshman year of high school, the tipping point being her struggle mastering Algebra I. At first, she admits to having felt “stupid, defective, and doomed to failure,” but with encouragement from her parents and the help of a special education teacher, Lenny learned more about her specific strengths and weakness. In her junior year she was among a select few students to attend the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) where she has excelled both socially and academically.

In hopes of promoting awareness and improving services for students with LD at NCSSM, Lenny co-founded a campus group called E=LD². The group provides networking opportunities for students (with and without LD) to share study strategies and information about LD, and has offered workshops to help teachers better understand the types of instructional strategies and accommodations that will help all students achieve their potential. The National Center for Learning Disabilities is now honoring Somervell with the 2008 Anne Ford Scholarship Award. Now in its seventh year, this scholarship provides $10,000 toward tuition over four years to a graduating high school senior with LD who will pursue an undergraduate degree at a college or university. Read more about the award in the Anne Ford Scholarship section of the NCLD website.

Entries are now being accepted for the first annual International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Special Interest Group Media Specialist Technology Innovation Award, sponsored by Linworth Publishing, Inc./Library Media Connection and Follett Software Company. The award will be presented to two teams, consisting of a school librarian and collaborating teacher, who have conducted an exemplary technology program extending beyond the library to meet the needs of classroom students and teachers.

The deadline for entries is March 15, 2008. For details, visit the Awards and Recognition page of the ISTE website.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)/Subaru Essay Writing Competition offers K-12 teachers the opportunity to share their knowledge on designing science lesson plans and integrating technology into the classroom. Ten winning essay writers will earn a deluxe package to the 2008 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, that includes registration fees and general expenses, up to a total of $500.

The deadline for entries is January 2, 2008. For complete contest details, visit the AAAS website.

The New York City Department of Education won the 2007 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the largest education prize in the United States, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced today. New York City has been a finalist for the Broad Prize for the past two years.

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings joined philanthropist Eli Broad at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to announce the winner. The $1 million Broad (rhymes with "road") Prize is an annual award that honors large urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among poor and minority students. The money goes directly to graduating high school seniors for college scholarships.

As the winner of the Broad Prize, the New York City Department of Education will receive $500,000 in college scholarships. The four finalists--Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut, Long Beach Unified School District in California, Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida, and the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas--will each receive $125,000 in college scholarships.

For further information, visit the Broad Foundation's website.

  IRA honors educators, authors, and others involved in reading and literacy efforts through nearly 40 awards and grants. Several of those awards have application deadlines that are fast approaching. Review the awards with approaching application deadlines on IRA’s website.

The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy has announced its 2008
national grant competition. The foundation’s grantmaking program seeks to develop or expand projects that are designed to support the development of literacy skills for adult primary care givers and their children. A total of approximately $650,000 will be awarded; no grant request should exceed $65,000.

“Literacy and health” is the focus of UNESCO’s five 2007 International Literacy Prizes, worth US$20,000 each. The deadline for submissions is June 15. Winners will be celebrated on International Literacy Day, September 8, 2007. Only governments and international NGOs may present candidatures. UNESCO has awarded literacy prizes annually since 1966, to recognize outstanding projects worldwide and to highlight the importance of literacy. The principal prizes in 2007 are the International Reading Association Literacy Award, the two King Sejong Literacy Prizes and the two Confucius Prizes. For more information on the UNESCO International Reading Association Literacy Prize, visit IRA’s website. More information on all five prizes can be found on the UNESCO Literacy Prizes website. Submissions should be sent to United Nations Literacy Decade Coordination Unit, Division for the Coordination of UN Priorities in Education, UNESCO, 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France. For more information, contact UNESCO by phone at +33 1 45 68 09 52 or by e-mail.

2008 Charlotte Award ballots are now available, according to the program’s sponsor, the New York State Reading Association.

Named for the main character in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, the purpose of the Charlotte Award is to encourage students to read outstanding literature and ultimately become lifelong readers. Additionally, the award recognizes the authors and illustrators of such literature. Students in New York State will read titles on the ballot and vote for their favorites. Votes will be tallied, and winners will receive their awards at the 42nd Annual NYSRA Statewide Conference in March 2009.

Additional details, including past winners, contest guidelines, and 2008 ballots, are available at the NSRA website.

By replacing a magnetic C with a magnetic F, a first-grader at Ellington Elementary School in Oklahoma shows teacher Karen Harlow how she can make a whole new word. In another classroom, kindergartners tell reading teacher Judy Hall how Cocoa the Cat stopped killing birds. Officials with the Oklahoma Reading Association noted such teamwork by awarding Ellington with its 2007 Exemplary Reading Program Award. School officials will pick up the award May 13 at the International Reading Association’s annual convention in Toronto. Read more about this award-winning school in this article from The Muskogee Phoenix.

The National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) is seeking five school districts to receive an award of $600,000 to implement the Toyota Family Literacy Program, which currently serves 45 elementary schools in 15 cities throughout the United States. The direct funding for the school districts that are selected will allow for support, training, education materials, and assistance from NCFL to implement the program for students in kindergarten through third grade.

Interested school districts must download, complete, and return a capability survey by May 9, 2007. For further information, visit the NCFL website.

The Teacher-to-Teacher Initiative of the U.S. Department of Education has announced the start of the 2007 American Stars of Teaching nomination process. The American Stars of Teaching program is designed to honor exemplary classroom teachers who are using innovative teaching strategies to improve student achievement and positively shape their school environment. The nomination process concludes on April 1. For further information, visit the Teacher-to-Teacher Initiative webpage.

Under the Eurasia/South Asia Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA), the U.S. Department of State and the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX ) have announced a competition for secondary-level teachers of English as a Foreign Language and Social Sciences from the United States to participate in a two-week professional exchange program. The selected teachers will travel to one of the following countries—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Ukraine. More information, including the program application, is available on the IREX website.

 UNESCO is calling for nominations for five International Literacy prizes of $20,000 each. This year’s theme is “Literacy and Sustainable Development.” One of the awards, the UNESCO International Reading Association Literacy Prize, has been sponsored by IRA since 1979. Find more information at UNESCO’s Education for All website and in the awards area of the IRA website.

Two researchers whose works focus on adult literacy for sustainable development have won the 2004–2006 UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) Literacy Research Award. The efforts of Sofia Valdivielso Gómez, of Spain, and Harbans S. Bhola, of the United States, were recognized on October 25, 2005, during the International Adult Learners Week celebrations in Oslo, Norway. Get more information about the award-winning studies at UNESCO’s Education for All website.

The U.S. Department of Education has begun accepting applications for the FY2005 Striving Readers Program grant awards. Eight grants ranging from $1 to $5 million will be awarded (average award $3 million). Priority will be given to (1) programs that serve students in grades 6–12 in schools that are Title I eligible; or (2) comprehensive reading initiatives. Information and application materials are now available at the U.S. Department of Education’s Striving Readers webpage.

The U.S. National Education Association (NEA) Foundation offers a variety of awards and grants for teachers and schools. The next deadline for the following programs--Innovation Grants, Learning & Leadership Grants, and the Read Across America Library Books Awards--is September 15.

The NEA Foundation provides $2,000 and $5,000 Innovation Grants and Learning & Leadershp Grants to public school teachers, public school education support professionals, and faculty and staff in public higher education institutions for the purpose of engaging in high-quality professional development or implementing project-based learning and break-the-mold innovations that raise student achievement. The Read Across America Library Books Awards are $5,000 awards designed to help public schools serving economically disadvantaged students purchase books for school libraries.

For further information about these and other awards and grants available through the NEA Foundation, visit the following webpage.

 Literacy projects in Mozambique, Spain, and Sudan are the winners of the 2005 UNESCO Literacy prizes, announced today by the Organization’s Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura. The winner of the US$15,000 UNESCO International Reading Association Literacy Award is the Associação PROGRESSO, a nongovernmental organization working for community development in Mozambique. Find details at UNESCO’s Education for All website.

Get more information about IRA’s International Literacy Award.