Serve as a TAH Grant Reviewer!

If you read this blog, you are probably qualified to serve as a proposal reviewer for the Teaching American History program. And I wish you would!

The TAH program is the largest federal program to improve the teaching of American history. To date, the Department of education has awarded over $800 million dollars to schools districts across the nation to fund programs to improve history education. I have been involved in quite a few of these projects and I think this is one of the best things that the DOE does.

Every year there are many hundreds of grant proposals, and the Department of Education relies on external reviewers to read the proposals and help to decide which ones get funded. It is an important job and a big responsibility, and it needs people who are knowledgeable about history and about education and can be relied on to actually read every page of the proposals (they are 25 pages, plus appendices, you will read about 9 of them) and comment upon them critically and fairly. And they will pay you! The full announcement seeking reviewers is below and includes contact information, but feel free to get in touch with me if you want to know more as well:

Subject: Call for 2010 TAH Application Reviewers

The 2010 U.S. Department of Education's Teaching American History (TAH) grant competition is upon us and we NEED your help to review TAH grant applications.

The anticipated grant review dates are April-May, 2010.

You may serve as a TAH grant reviewer if you meet at least (1) one of the following qualifications:
.     A degree in history
.     K-12 history teacher
.     History professor
.     TAH grant director
.     TAH grant partner
.     History scholar
.     Other history-related professional
.     Professional development provider
.     Evaluator or evaluation specialist

Please email your abbreviated résumé (5 pages maximum) to Yianni Alepohoritis at Yianni.Alepohoritis@ed.gov or Adam Bookman at Adam.Bookman@ed.gov no later than February 12, 2010. Please specify in your email whether you are a history, professional development, or evaluation specialist.

If selected, you will serve on a panel with two other reviewers.  This process includes one week of reading applications on your own and two weeks of telephone meetings with your panel.  An honorarium is given to those who complete the grant review. Each reviewer will review about 10 applications. If you are involved in a current 2010 application, you may not serve as a reviewer.

For more information on the TAH program, please visit the program website at http://www.ed.gov/programs/teachinghistory/index.html.

Adam Bookman
Management and Program Analyst
U.S. Department of Education
Office of Innovation and Improvement
Teaching American History Grant Team
Phone (202)-205-5427
Fax (202)-401-8466