Senate Bill Would Create Online Accounts to Track Students’ Progress and Help Them Save for College

A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday would create Web-based accounts to track students’ progress from elementary school through college, establish college-savings plans for low-income students, and award grants to partnerships between organizations that help prepare low-income students for college.

The bill, which is called the American Dream Accounts Act of 2012 and has bipartisan support, would create password-protected “dream accounts” that would serve a dual purpose as college-savings accounts and as a way to track individual students’ academic performance from elementary school through higher education.

It would also reallocate $3-million from existing Department of Education funds for a program under which organizations could form partnerships to compete for grants with which to help low-income students plan for college, with preference given to organizations willing to contribute seed money to the students’ college-savings accounts.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, and is cosponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico.

In a conference call with reporters, Mr. Coons said the bill “encourages partnerships—it doesn’t impose them—and it pushes a lot of the innovation and energy to the nonprofit and private sector, where there is a lot being done.” He said the Education Department would decide which funds to use for the program.

Mr. Coons said there was a communication gap between families and educational institutions, and that the bill would connect individual learning plans with the college-admissions process. Social-networking Web sites like Facebook, he said, inspired the dream accounts, which he said would help link teachers, parents, students, and mentors in an unprecedented way. Currently, he said, “We don’t connect across the silos.”