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WICHE Announces State Scholars Initiative Preannouncement for RFP

TO:
Governors

Chief State School Officers

State-level and national business/education organizations

State-level educational organizations

State GEAR UP, MESA, College in the High School Programs

Other national and state educational organizations

Media and educational journals

FROM:
David Longanecker, Executive Director, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)

Terese Rainwater, Program Director, State Scholars Initiative

DATE: September 21, 2006

SUBJECT: Pre-Announcement – RFP for State Scholars Initiative

This is a pre-announcement of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the State Scholars Initiative to be issued on or about September 22, 2006. WICHE invites new state-level business-education partnerships to apply for federal State Scholars Initiative (SSI) grants. WICHE is administering this national initiative with grant support from the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) of the U.S. Department of Education (ED).

SSI is a multi-state business-education partnership effort focused on increasing the number of high school students who take a rigorous secondary-level curriculum designed to strengthen both college and workplace entrance and success. The initiative is a key component of the current high school reform movement and is complementary to the No Child Left Behind effort.

Eighteen states are currently participating in SSI, in that they are receiving funds and operating SSI projects in their states, or they have completed their SSI projects and remained within the SSI Network: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia. Two additional states previously were funded and operated and completed SSI projects: New Mexico and Washington. Through this RFP, eligible entities in other states (not among the twenty states referred to above) are invited to submit proposals for SSI funding. Each new state-level business-education partnership may be funded at up to $300,000 over a two-year period to implement SSI projects as described in this pre-announcement and in the RFP.

The final RFP will be available at WICHE’s Web site at http://www.wiche/statescholars with complete application materials on or about September 22, 2006. We are planning to hold a bidders’ conference on or about October 4, 2006.

We encourage states that have not yet participated in the SSI to consider submitting a proposal in response to this RFP. Proposals will be due at WICHE on or about November 2, 2006, and the RFP will provide the due date.

By way of background, the federal State Scholars Initiative is predicated upon three important research findings:
There is a strong link between courses completed in high school and postsecondary achievement;1
A solid high school education can increase wages both for students who enroll in and complete postsecondary education and for students who enter the workforce
directly from high school;2
A solid academic foundation in high school benefits every student regardless of ethnicity and socioeconomic status (in fact, students from families with lower socioeconomic status tend to derive a greater relative benefit from a rigorous course of study). 3

To derive these research findings, the U.S. Department of Education conducted three long-term studies that tracked students from the sophomore year of high school through age 30. Especially telling are findings related to course taking; i.e., the strong link between courses completed in high school and postsecondary degree completion. Students who took Algebra II, for example, earned a bachelor’s gree 39.5 percent of the time, while students who stopped at geometry earned a bachelor’s degree only 23.1 percent of the time. 4

State-level business-education partnerships proposing to carry out new projects supported under the SSI must meet SSI requirements. As will be outlined in the RFP, key requirements will include: a) students in at least four participating school districts in the state are encouraged to take a prescribed course of study (Scholars Course of Study) with each participating school district having at least one school with a grade 12 within it and each participating school district to have, at a minimum, one high school participating in SSI; b) high school reform is a priority for the decision leaders in the state; c) the project receives approval by the Governor and the Chief State School Officer; d) the state’s policy structure is aligned, or plans to align, with rigorous high school course completion; e) the applicant business-education partnership is a viable state business-education coalition to house and lead the State Scholars Initiative effort; f) there are key in-state corporations serving as “flagship sponsors” through financial and/or in-kind contributions; g) there are plans for leveraging resources with related projects in the state as appropriate such as GEAR UP, MESA, others; and h) there are sustainability plans for after the grant ends.

WICHE is available at this time to provide technical assistance to any state entity interested in developing an application. Please contact Terese Rainwater, program director for the SSI, at [email protected] and/or 303-541-0225 for questions or comments regarding this program.

Thank you for your interest in the State Scholars Initiative.

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