State Scholars Initiative RFP to increase the number of high school students who take a rigorous secondary-level curriculum designed to strengthen both college and workplace entrance and success.

This is an announcement of a request for proposals (RFP) for the State Scholars Initiative, issued February 6, 2006. WICHE invites new state-level business/education partnerships to apply for federal State Scholars Initiative grants. We are administering this national project for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) of the U.S. Department of Education (ED).

The State Scholars Initiative is a multistate 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 fully aligned with the purposes and objectives of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Fourteen states currently participate in the State Scholars Initiative: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Washington. Through the upcoming RFP, additional states will be sought to join the network. Each new state-level business/education partnership may be funded at up to $300,000 over a two-year period to implement State Scholars projects, which are described in the RFP. Current state participants are not eligible to reapply for new or continuing funds.

The RFP, with complete application materials, is now available at WICHE’s Web site at http://www.wiche.edu/statescholars.

We encourage states not yet participating in the State Scholars Initiative to consider submitting a proposal to this RFP. Proposals need to be received at WICHE by March 14, 2006.

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 degree 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]

WICHE is available at this time to provide technical assistance to any eligible state entity interested in developing a proposal. Please contact Terese Rainwater, program director for the State Scholars Initiative, if you have questions or comments regarding this program: [email protected] and 303-541-0225.

Thank you for your interest in the State Scholars Initiative.

[1] Examples: Deena Ackerman “Do the Math: High School Mathematics Courses and the Earnings of High School Graduates” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2001); Clifford Adelman, “Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor’s Degree Attainment” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1999), accessed 1/27/06 at <http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Toolbox/>; ACT, “Crisis at the Core: Preparing All Students for College and Work” (Iowa City, IA: ACT, 2004); College Board, “College Bound Seniors 2002” (New York: College Board, 2004), Table 3-3; ACT and The Education Trust, “On Course for Success: A Close Look at Selected High School Courses that Prepare All Students for College,” accessed 1/27/06 at <http://www.act.org/path/policy/reports /success.html> (published in 2005); and Laura Perna and Mavis Titus, "Understanding Differences in the Choice of College Attended: The Role of State Public Policies,” Review of Higher Education 27 (4), 501-525.

[2] Examples: Achieve, “The Expectations Gap: A 50-State Review of High School Graduation Requirements” (Washington, D.C.: Achieve, 2004); ETS, “Standards for What? The Economic Roots of K-16 Reform” (Princeton, NJ: ETS, 2003).

[3] Examples: ETS, “Characteristics of Minority Students Who Excel on the SAT and in the Classroom” (Princeton, N.J.: ETS, 2005); Washington State School Directors’ Association, “Closing the Achievement Gap: A Policy Action Guide for Washington’s State School Districts” (Olympia, WA: WSSDA, 2002); and Achieve, “The Expectations Gap.”

[4] Adelman, “Answers in the Tool Box.”