Federal grant

So you know how we had more than one fraught vote about the federal School Transformation Grants? Turns out that no one other than Boston is going to have a plan together fast enough to apply for this year. The state's piecing together some money for every school for this year, but no one will get federal STG grants until next school year.

school turnaround grant deadline is July 9, so only Boston is going to hit that deadline
there was yesterday, early implementation grants given to nine districts for schools to use for this summer (to a maximum of $100,000)
between July 1 and Dec 1, there is first year "Bridge funding grants" for Oct-June ($150,000 to $200,000 a school for that first year)
school turnaround grant for 2011-12, is due Dec. 1
so fall of 2011 is the first year of the federal grant; schools will get it for three years following that (and that's the $500,000 a year to a total of $1.5 million per school in total)

grant requires:
replacement of principal under transformation model (the 7 districts with fewer Level 4 schools are opting for this)
evaluations "that are based in significant measure" using student growth to improve teachers' and school leaders' performance
annual evaluations to include:
MCAS student growth percentiles; pre and post assessments of student learning in other subjects and grades
use at least 3 performance ratings
ID and reward school leaders, teachers and other staff who improve student achievement outcomes, ID and remove those who do not
model on this avaliable by the spring from the state