Teach for America, the nonprofit group that recruits elite college students to teach in public schools, and the KIPP Foundation, which runs a nationwide network of charter schools, were big winners in a $650 million federal grant competition known as Investing in Innovation, the Department of Education said Wednesday.

Each group won $50 million. Two others won large awards for proposals the department said were backed by significant evidence of success with students.

The Success for All Foundation, a Baltimore group that helps to turn around struggling elementary schools, won $49 million. And Ohio State University, partnered with several other universities, was awarded $46 million to train some 3,750 teachers in the Reading Recovery approach, which focuses on struggling first-grade students.

The department awarded the remaining $455 million in smaller amounts to 45 other nonprofit groups and school districts. About 1,700 groups applied for grants, the department said.

Congress financed the innovation grant competition in last year’s economic stimulus, along with the larger, better-known, $4.2 billion competition known as Race to the Top, in which states have put forward proposals for shaking up their school systems.

The innovation competition, in contrast, was open to nonprofit organizations and local school districts.

Read the full article at The New York Times...