2009 Federal Priorities

The Federal Register announced the continued use--in fiscal year (FY) 2009--of priorities that the Department of Education (Department) previously established for use in any discretionary grant program competition in FY 2007 and FY 2008.


Final Priorities
Priority 1--Mathematics.
Projects that support activities to enable students to achieve proficiency or advanced proficiency in mathematics.

Priority 2--Science.
Projects that support activities to enable students to achieve proficiency or advanced proficiency in science.

Priority 3--Critical-Need Languages.
Projects that support activities to enable students to achieve proficiency or advanced proficiency in one or more of the following less commonly taught languages: Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, and languages in the Indic, Iranian, and Turkic language families.

Priority 4--Secondary Schools.
Projects that support activities and interventions aimed at improving the academic achievement of secondary school students who are at greatest risk of not meeting challenging State academic standards and not completing high school.

Priority 5--Professional Development for Secondary School Teachers.
Projects that support high-quality professional development for secondary school teachers to help these teachers improve student academic achievement.

Priority 6--School Districts with Schools in Need of Improvement,
Corrective Action, or Restructuring.
Projects that help school districts implement academic and structural interventions in schools that have been identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Priority 7--Student Achievement Data.
Projects that collect pre-and post-intervention test data to assess the effect of the projects on the academic achievement of student participants relative to appropriate comparison or control groups.

Priority 8--State Data Systems.
Projects that help educators use information from State data systems to improve student achievement or other appropriate outcomes.