New Discretionary Grant Reports for the 2020–21 project year are now available for the Native American and Alaska Native Children in School (NAM) and National Professional Development (NPD) programs. The reports, produced by the Office of English Language Acquisition, are based on performance results from the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and other project-specific measures.
NPD Discretionary Report – 2017 Cohort
The NPD program supports professional development activities designed to improve classroom instruction for English learners (ELs) and assist educational personnel working with such children to meet high professional standards. Grantees provided teacher/staff professional development, promoted parent and community involvement, developed coursework to better prepare pre- and in-service teachers to work with ELs, and worked toward improving academic outcomes for ELs.
In 2020–21, close to 1,800 preK–12 teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, school support staff, and preservice teachers participated in programs administered by the 2017 grantees. Additionally, close to 1,300 in-service teachers participated in programs, on average exceeding grantees’ participation targets for in-service teachers. NPD 2017 grantees made significant progress toward both GPRA measures and reported the most progress on in-service program completers, with over 1,200 teachers completing the program. NPD 2017 grantees made the least progress on GPRA measures related to preservice completers. Grantee activities were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic: 32% of those sampled reported that the pandemic resulted in redesigning, rescheduling, or reducing the number of in-person activities conducted by the project, and 28% of grantees reported that the pandemic impacted their ability to collect outcome data related to project-specific measures.
NAM Discretionary Report – 2018 Cohort
The purpose of the NAM program is to award grants to eligible entities to develop and enhance capacity to provide effective instruction and support to Native American students who are identified as English learners (ELs). The goal of this program is to support the teaching, learning and studying of Native American languages while also increasing the English language proficiency of students served to achieve the same challenging State academic content and achievement standards for all students. The NAM program identified priority areas for funded projects that included Native American and Alaska Native language instruction, early learning, parent engagement, and family literacy.
For the 2020–21 project year, NAM 2018 grantees made progress toward both GPRA measures and project-specific measures, Native language proficiency, and increases in student enrollment. Grantees from the 2018 cohort made the most significant progress on the GPRA measure regarding student attainment of Native language proficiency and made the least progress on the GPRA measures regarding the number of students who scored proficient on state reading assessments and the number of ELs attaining proficiency in English. One hundred percent of grantees made references to COVID-19 disruptions, including collecting student outcome data, shifting activities from in-person events to virtual events, reduced family engagement opportunities, and difficulties staffing projects.