Investing in Innovation

I3 (Investing in Innovation) program helps to improve educational outcomes for students by developing, validating, and scaling up effective practices. The program’s emphasis on supporting projects with either evidence of effectiveness or a strong research-based framework increases the likelihood that funded projects succeed and that we learn more about what works. In addition, the program garners significant non-Federal investment to support educational innovation; to date, private institutions have made commitments of nearly $150 million to assist in the implementation of grantee projects. The i3 program continues to see significant demand across the Nation, with the 2012 competition generating over 700 applications for projects to expand or scale up proven practices and pre-applications for projects to develop and evaluate promising practices.

In addition, the request would support the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Education (ARPA-ED), a new entity modeled after similar agencies in the Department of Defense and Department of Energy that would pursue breakthrough developments in educational technology and tools.