Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program: Expansion Grants

Note: Each funding opportunity description is a synopsis ofinformation in the Federal Register application notice. For specificinformation about eligibility, please see the official application notice. Theofficial version of this document is the document published in the FederalRegister. Free Internet access to the official edition of the Federal Registerand the Code of Federal Regulations is available on GPO Access at:http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html. Please review the officialapplication notice for pre-application and application requirements,application submission information, performance measures, priorities andprogram contact information. For the addresses for obtaining and submitting anapplication, please refer to our Common Instructions for Applicants toDepartment of Education Discretionary Grant Programs, published in the FederalRegister on February 12, 2018 (83 FR 6003) and available atwww.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-02-12/pdf/2018-02558.pdf. The EIR program,established under section 4611 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,as amended (ESEA), provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate,or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovationsto improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students; andrigorously evaluate such innovations. The EIR program is designed to generateand validate solutions to persistent education challenges and to support theexpansion of those solutions to serve substantially larger numbers ofstudents.  The central design element ofthe EIR program is its multi-tier structure that links the amount of funding anapplicant may receive to the quality of the evidence supporting the efficacy ofthe proposed project, with the expectation that projects that build thisevidence will advance through EIR’s grant tiers: “Early-phase,” “Mid-phase,”and “Expansion.” Applicants proposing innovative practices that are supportedby limited evidence can receive relatively small grants to support thedevelopment, implementation, and initial evaluation of the practices;applicants proposing practices supported by evidence from rigorous evaluations,such as an experimental study (as defined in this notice), can receive largergrant awards to support expansion across the country. This structure providesincentives for applicants to: (1) Explore new ways of addressing persistentchallenges that other educators can build on and learn from; (2) build evidenceof effectiveness of their practices; and (3) replicate and scale successfulpractices in new schools, districts, and States while addressing the barriersto scale, such as cost structures and implementation fidelity.  All EIR projects are expected to generate informationregarding their effectiveness in order to inform EIR grantees’ efforts to learnabout and improve upon their efforts, and to help similar, non-EIR effortsacross the country benefit from EIR grantees’ knowledge. By requiring that allgrantees conduct independent evaluations of their EIR projects, EIR ensuresthat its funded projects make a significant contribution to improving thequality and quantity of information available to practitioners and policymakersabout which practices improve student achievement and attainment, for whichtypes of students, and in what contexts. The Department awards three types of grants under this program:“Early-phase” grants, “Mid-phase” grants, and “Expansion” grants. These grantsdiffer in terms of the level of prior evidence of effectiveness required forconsideration for funding, the expectations regarding the kind of evidence andinformation funded projects should produce, the level of scale funded projectsshould reach, and, consequently, the amount of funding available to supporteach type of project.  The Departmentexpects that Expansion grants will provide funding for implementation andrigorous evaluation of a program that has been found to produce sizable,significant impacts under a Mid-phase grant or other effort meeting similarcriteria, for the purposes of: (a) Determining whether such impacts can besuccessfully reproduced and sustained over time; and (b) identifying theconditions in which the program is most effective.  Expansion grants are supported by evidencethat demonstrates a statistically significant effect on improving studentoutcomes or other relevant outcomes based on strong evidence (as defined inthis notice) from at least one well-designed and well-implemented experimentalstudy for at least one population and setting, and grantees are encouraged toimplement at the national level (as defined in this notice).  This notice invites applications forExpansion grants only. The notices inviting applications for Early-phase andMid-phase grants are published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register.