I am helping with evaluating these applications from k-12 schools of GA. This process teaches me a lot. I know what this type of application should look like now. I know how different those application proposals could be when they are written by different teams of different school, even they are writing under exactly the same proposal writing rubric…
Some proposals are really good, but these proposals are usually from schools with a well-trained team, and they usually are wealthy, which means, they might not need this grant , or they might need it, but not as much as those poorer schools.
On the contrary, there was a poor-written article. It was short, unlogical, not having enough evidence, not persuading… But there was one thing which made me want to recommend them: their data indicating they are really not a rich school and with outdated computers and software. I wished to recommend this school, but my mentor colleague, J, thought they should not be recommended, because they don’t have a good plan of how to use the grant, how to evaluate the implementing results and how to disseminate. These, are really important things to decide if they should get the grant, she said. I had to agree with her, because she was professional at this point. But I still feel… maybe those schools really in need won’t get grants because they don’t have a good writing team…