The PLaCEs grant provides an incentive for public schools to establish a consortium with the goal to improve student achievement. The consortium should be designed so that it can more effectively achieve its objectives collectively rather than as individual public schools.  The PLaCEs grant will promote effective practices designed to improve student achievement through a consortium consisting of at least three (3) public schools. Each consortium must be led by an anchor school listed on Attachment D and include at least one (1) public school of a Race to the Top participating LEA not identified on Attachment D.

The PLaCEs grant will serve four critical goals: 1) to foster the sharing of best practices developed in high achieving schools, 2) to foster collaboration across the District to tackle difficult challenges, 3) to give high achieving individuals and schools opportunities to inform and engage in education reforms beyond their current schools and responsibilities, and 4) to impact the learning and achievement of a greater number of District of Columbia students than would benefit without the consortium.