Federal education officials last week pledged that the economic-stimulus program's $650 million innovation fund will reserve the largest grants for schools, districts, and nonprofit organizations that want to finance programs with proven track records and are ready to grow. In the U.S. Department of Education's first substantial preview of the "Investing in Innovation" grant program--newly dubbed the "i3 Fund"--the U.S. Secretary of Education sketched out three broad grant categories that, in essence, will make the biggest awards where there's the most evidence of success. The grants start going out early next year, and the largest--of up to $50 million each--will be reserved for "proven" programs that are ready to grow, the U.S. Secretary of Education told a gathering of school district superintendents. The second category will be grants of up to $30 million for programs that already exist in pilot form, where research shows they work. The smallest grants will be for up to $5 million in seed money for "pure innovation"--ideas that aren't proved but show promise. The i3 innovation grants are part of a larger $5 billion pot of discretionary money available to the U.S. Secretary of Education as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February. The i3 program is set aside for school districts, nonprofit organizations, and consortia of schools to encourage innovation. Separately, Education Department officials are asking the philanthropic community to pledge money beyond the $650 million in the stimulus package toward the department's goal of scaling up innovation at the district level.