Former President Obama's American Investment and Recovery Act of 2009 included $3 billion of funding for School Improvement Grants (SIG). SIG awards went to states' lowest-performing schools who agreed to implement improvements using either the turnaround, transformation, restart, or closure models, and using four main improvement practices: adopting comprehensive school reform programs; developing teacher and principal effectiveness; making more time for learning and creating community-oriented schools, and providing support and operational flexibility for schools.

Given the size and expense of the SIG program, The Institute of Education Sciences at the Department of Education commissioned a report by Lisa Dragoset and colleagues at Mathematica Policy Research, and Cheryl Graczewski and colleagues at the American Institutes for Research, to investigate to what extent the SIG-funded schools used the recommended practices, how these schools compared to non-funded schools, the effect of SIG funding on student outcomes, and which of the intervention models was most effective.

Researchers found that the use of SIG funding had no effect on student outcomes in math or reading test scores, high school graduation, or likelihood to attend college. No SIG model was associated with more gains than another at the elementary level, although in grades 6-12, SIG-funded schools using the turnaround model were associated with higher student math achievement than the transformational model. More recommended improvement practices were used in SIG-funded schools than in non-funded schools, although not significantly so, and were implemented most often in schools using the school reform model. These findings indicate that SIG funding did not significantly impact student achievement outcomes or increase the use of recommended practices, at least for schools near the SIG funding cutoff. They noted that results might be different for schools not near the SIG-funding cutoff.