§19173 Opportunities for Online Education

Summary

The Director must give competitive awards to colleges, nonprofits, or groups of them (which can include private companies) to do research on online STEM education for rural communities. Funded research can cover things like assessing STEM learning for rural students (prekindergarten through grade 12); how online training and mentoring can help teachers, principals, and school leaders; mixing online STEM courses with mentoring and hands-on learning; using online programs to help rural students who need physical or academic accommodations; and other activities the Director approves. All proposals must include an evaluation plan that uses outcome-oriented measures. Awardees must share results in their annual and final project materials. The Director will evaluate the whole set of awards using common benchmarks to find best practices and, when possible, connect findings to other rural/STEM research. Within 180 days after finishing that evaluation, the Director must send a report with the results and any suggested administrative or legislative actions to Congress and make it public. The Director must also coordinate with other federal agencies to improve the program and avoid duplicate work.