June 29, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Department of Education has awarded the state of California $416 million dollars to turn around dozens of its under-performing public schools.

This grant award is available for 5% of the state’s public schools who have consistently failed to meet a variety of academic benchmarks.

The money is being awarded by U.S. Department of Education's School Improvement Grants program which hopes to raise academic levels in these 188 schools to appropriate levels.

California school districts can apply for these grants of $50,000 to $2 million for their suffering schools, but must agree to one of four outlined measures in order to be approved.

To get the grants, districts will have to take drastic measures to reform the struggling schools, such as converting to a charter school, replacing the principal, increasing instructional time, firing half the staff or closing entirely and sending students to higher-achieving schools.

Charter schools have proved to be very successful in teaching low-income students and consistently outperform their public counterparts, despite being in some of California’s toughest areas.

Of the 12 top-performing charter schools, five are in Oakland, three in Los Angeles County, two in Santa Clara County, and one each in San Bernardino and San Diego counties.

Charter schools are funded at about 85 percent of the level of traditional public schools and are accountable to parents not unions, and as such are freer to choose teachers and have stricter practices without all the red tape.

Unfortunately this is a voluntary grant program and schools that do not want to make any of these reforms will not be forced.

In fact, because of the drastic measures only 17 schools of the 188 have agreed to go ahead and commit to the reform and take the money.

School boards agreeing to these reforms include Escondido Unified, Santa Ana and San Bernardino Unified to name a few.

Districts that have said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ include Oakland Unified and San Diego. Although they still have a bit more time to change their minds.

In other efforts to improve their schools California is also participating in the Obama $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition.

In the wake of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company responsible, British Petroleum, has agreed to give $25 million in grants to universities across Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

This money is the first of a $500 million commitment to fund research studies on the effects of the spill. It will be distributed according to each university’s unique research needs with USF’s Florida Institute of Oceanography set to receive the most funds with a $10 million grant.

And while the money is being given to certain institutions and research programs it comes with no stipulations as to how exactly the money should be administered within the project.

“BP has no influence on how we do things, the money we get from them will come with no strings attached,” said William Hogarth, dean of the USF College of Marine Science. “We will do science based on science.”

This grant commitment was made after it became apparent that clean up wasn’t being done as efficiently as possible. ‘Right now there are just too many unknowns that are stalling the clean-up process,’ said Hogarth.

Some of the research initiatives that are set to take place include investigations into the effects of oil on marine life and the environment; studies into how oil disperses in a spill and the ecological interactions it has.

The oil spill occurred when the Deepwater Horizon Well exploded April 20 just off the coast of Florida. The well leaked at a rapid rate for well over a month before a temporary cap was finally put on it.

The full damages are yet unknown but experts say they are far worse than anything we have ever seen before. Officials and volunteers are working around the clock to clean up the mess and prevent the spread of the oil and unnecessary contamination of marine life and coastal vegetation.

It is hoped by all that the grant money received by universities will be pivotal in preventing a disaster of this magnitude to happen again.

May 2010

Forty deserving students in the Sunshine State are anxiously awaiting their grant checks, after being chosen as the first-ever recipients of the Florida Realtors Education Grant.

The Florida Realtors Education Foundation is giving away more than $100,000 to these recent high school grads to help pay for their tuition expenses for the 2010-2011 school year.

Students are set to receive grants of $2,000-$4,000, with the higher denomination going to students pursuing 4-year degrees.

In order to qualify for these awards students must be Florida residents and attending community colleges, four-year universities, graduate programs or law schools. Students do not have to be pursuing a career in real estate, although like-minded individuals are given preference.Other factors for consideration included academic achievements, financial need, relationship to the Realtor family, and contributions to family, school and community.

The Florida Realtors Board of Directors explained that this was their way of giving back to the community. Bob Hudgens, chairman of the foundation said that everyday realtors help individuals and families realize their dreams of home ownership, but this is taking that help even further. By giving young people the tools to study and get an education, they are helping make home ownership possible for them in the future.

Aside from these scholarships, Florida Realtors also sponsors an Essay Scholarship Contest for Florida high school students. To qualify students must write a 500 word essay on a specific topic outlined by the Foundation. Scholarship amounts vary from year to year, but for 2010 the first-place winning entry in each of the state association's 13 Regional Districts receives a $1,000 scholarship; district winners will go on to compete for three $5,000 state-level scholarship awards, for a total of $28,000 in scholarship funding from Florida Realtors.

Florida Realtors is the largest realty group in the State of Florida. It provides programs, services, continuing education, research and legislative representation to its 115,000 members in 67 boards/associations.

June 9, 2010

The federal government confirmed Monday its plans to award $234 million in government grants to non profits and organizations who are active members of the AmeriCorps program and helping to improve national services.

The grant awards will put 57,000 Americorps members to work in communities across the country where they will mentor children, clean up parks or buildings and weatherize homes for the poor, among other activities.

This grant money is the first of a seemingly strong effort by the Obama administration who recently passed a new law aimed at tripling the national service program by 2017. The funds are being distributed by the federal Corporation for National and Community Service. States and territories will also get an additional $129 million for AmeriCorps slots, which will see Americorps participation rise to 85,000 people, with the long-term goal being to reach 250,000.

Americorps participants complete their work on a predominantly volunteer basis. This means that participants do not receive a wage, but are rather just given a living stipend to cover their living costs throughout their participation. Most participants, who are predominantly 18 to 26, get about $11,800.

All Americorps initiatives fall into one of five categories: helping the poor, improving education, encouraging energy efficiency, strengthening access to healthcare and assisting veterans. The $234 million being awarded will be divided between 329 national and local organizations, state service commissions, and religious groups.

AmeriCorps Programs Receiving Money

Teach for America will receive the largest grant, being awarded $11.4 million for 6,621 Americorps members performing its services. Teach for America is a non-profit organization that works to eliminate education inequality across the nation by placing recently graduated teachers to teach in low income areas.

Operation Welcome Home is another important program receiving almost $560,000 in grants to run their service. This program is run by the California Department of Veterans Affairs and employs 80 AmeriCorps who help returning service members in California with the transition back to civilian life.

Other big winners in the grant awards include: $400,000 for the Northern Mariana Islands; $650,000 to learn and Earn Alaska; $702,000 to the National AIDS Fund and $1,600,000 for Harlem Children's Zone Peacemaker Program; $1,096,000 for National Association of Service & Conservation Corps amongst so many others.

June 3, 2010

A $15 million grant is has been awarded to help 3,200 government workers on NASA’s space shuttle program in Florida, who are set to lose their jobs when the program finishes at the end of this year.

This grant was issued by the federal Labour Department on Tuesday and according to officials, will be used to fund career guidance, job training and continuing education programs to get them ready for successful careers outside of NASA. They are among the 9,000 people facing layoffs as the shuttle program winds down.

The $15 million revised grant is being awarded to the Brevard Workforce Development Board Inc., who will be in charge of administrating the money as they see it fit. The money will go to help workers at all levels, from entry-level to skilled professionals in top end positions.

This is the least the government can do to compensate aerospace workers who have helped NASA in its missions throughout the past 3 decades, according to US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis who announced this additional government funding.

The grant supplements a $40 million jobs training program introduced by President Obama in April. The original job training program was put into place after Obama called to a halt the already planned mission to the moon by NASA fleet in 2011. Obama stated that funds set to be used for this mission could find better use in the creation of a rocket that can carry a 5 man team to the moon, and enhanced career training for the workers. The mission has thus been put on hold for about 5 year’s time.

The new rocket design is said to be a faster and slimmed-down version of the current aircraft and will be created and tested over the next few years with concrete plans outlined to send astronauts to nearby asteroids, to the Earth's moon and the moons of Mars, and to Mars itself.

And while Americans will inevitably lose jobs in the interim the combination of money used to upgrade NASA facilities in the next few years and the new jobs that will come from launches of the new commercial rockets will produce at least 2,000 more jobs by 2012 than the original plan would have.