Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program: Mid-phase Grants CFDA Number 84.411B

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Note: Each funding opportunity description is a synopsis of information in the Federal Register application notice. For specific information about eligibility, please see the official application notice. The official version of this document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html. Please review the official application notice for pre-application and application requirements, application submission information, performance measures, priorities and program contact information. For the addresses for obtaining and submitting an application, please refer to our Common Instructions for Applicants to Department of Education Discretionary Grant Programs, published in the Federal Register on February 12, 2018 (83 FR 6003) and available at www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-02-12/pdf/2018-02558.pdf. Purpose of Program: The EIR program, established undersection 4611 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended (ESEA),provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scaleentrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve studentachievement and attainment for high-need students; and rigorously evaluate suchinnovations. The EIR program is designed to generate and validate solutions topersistent education challenges and to support the expansion of those solutionsto serve substantially larger numbers of students. The central design element of the EIR programis its multi-tier structure that links the amount of funding an applicant mayreceive to the quality of the evidence supporting the efficacy of the proposedproject, with the expectation that projects that build this evidence willadvance through EIR's grant tiers: “Early-phase,” “Mid-phase,” and “Expansion.”Applicants proposing innovative practices that are supported by limitedevidence can receive relatively small grants to support the development,implementation, and initial evaluation of the practices; applicants proposingpractices supported by evidence from rigorous evaluations, such as anexperimental study (as defined in this notice), can receive larger grant awardsto support expansion across the country. This structure provides incentives forapplicants to: (1) Explore new ways of addressing persistent challenges thatother educators can build on and learn from; (2) build evidence ofeffectiveness 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 generateinformation regarding their effectiveness in order to inform EIR grantees'efforts to learn about and improve upon their efforts, and to help similar,non-EIR efforts across the country benefit from EIR grantees' knowledge. Byrequiring that all grantees conduct independent evaluations of their EIRprojects, EIR ensures that its funded projects make a significant contributionto improving the quality and quantity of information available to practitionersand policymakers about which practices improve student achievement andattainment, for which types of students, and in what contexts. The Department awards three types of grantsunder this program: “Early-phase” grants, “Mid-phase” grants, and “Expansion”grants. These grants differ in terms of the level of prior evidence ofeffectiveness required for consideration for funding, the expectationsregarding the kind of evidence and information funded projects should produce,the level of scale funded projects should reach, and, consequently, the amountof funding available to support each type of project. The Department expects that Mid-phase grantswill be used to fund implementation and a rigorous evaluation of a program thathas been successfully implemented under an Early-phase grant or other effortmeeting similar criteria, for the purpose of measuring the program's impact andcost-effectiveness, if possible using existing administrative data. Mid-phasegrants are supported by evidence that demonstrates a statistically significanteffect on improving student outcomes or other relevant outcomes based onmoderate evidence (as defined in this notice) from at least one well-designedand well-implemented experimental study for at least one population or setting,and grantees are encouraged to implement at the regional level (as defined inthis notice) or at the national level (as defined in this notice). This noticeinvites applications for Mid-phase grants only. The notices inviting applicationsfor Early-phase and Expansion grants are published elsewhere in this issue ofthe Federal Register.

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