Brown Announces OSU as Finalist for More Than $45 Million in Federal Funds

WASHINGTON D.C. - U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced today that the Ohio State University's "Reading Recovery: Scaling Up What Works" program is one of four final candidates nationwide for the Department of Education's competitive i3 scale-up grant competition. The Ohio State University will receive $45,593,170 if OSU provides a 20 percent private match required by the program by September 8, 2010.

"Investing in students' education today will provide our nation with the skilled workforce needed for the 21^st century economy," said Brown, a former member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee.

The "Reading Recovery: Scaling Up What Works" aims to improve the skills of first graders who experience difficulty learning to read and write, and typically fall within the lowest 20 percent of the class. The goal of the proposal is an intensive, long-term professional development for teachers who provide one-on-one, daily sessions with struggling first graders in an effort to accelerate their learning and close the achievement gap within first grade classrooms. The "Reading Recovery" program has been implemented for 20 years, but this proposal would target high-need schools and provide Reading Recovery teachers for students in the lowest-achieving schools. Reading Recovery would oversee the project at sixteen other universities across the country.

The Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) was established under section 14007 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. There are three types of grants: scale-up, validation and development which vary in amount. The largest grants are the scale-up grants which are to replicate proven practices. The grants given out seek to enable eligible entities to develop and expand innovative practices that can serve as models of best practices, allow eligible entities to work in partnership with the private sector and the philanthropic community, and identify and document best practices that can be shared and taken to scale based on proven success.

###