The Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program, established under section 4611 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field initiated innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students; and to rigorously evaluate such innovations. The EIR program is designed to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and to support the expansion of those solutions to serve substantially more students.
The central design element of the EIR program is its multi-tier structure that links the amount of funding an applicant may receive to the quality of the evidence supporting the efficacy of the proposed project. One of the program's goals is for projects to build evidence that will allow them advance through EIR's grant tiers: Early-phase,” Mid-phase,” and Expansion.”
Early-phase,” Mid-phase,” and Expansion” grants differ in terms of the evidence of effectiveness required to be considered for funding, the expectations regarding the kind of evidence and information funded projects should produce, the scale of funded projects, and, consequently, the amount of funding available to support each type of project.
Mid-phase grants are supported by moderate evidence. Mid-phase grants provide funding for the implementation and rigorous evaluation of a program, which has been successfully implemented under an Early-phase grant or other similar effort, such as developing and testing an innovative education practice at a local level, for the purpose of measuring the program's impact and cost-effectiveness.
Mid-phase projects are expected to refine and expand the use of practices with prior evidence of effectiveness to improve outcomes for underserved and high-need students. They are also expected to generate information about an intervention's effectiveness, such as for whom and in which contexts a practice is most effective, including cost considerations such as economies of scale. Mid-phase projects are uniquely positioned to help answer questions about the process of scaling a practice to the regional or national levels across geographies as well as locale types. Mid-phase grantees are encouraged to consider how the cost structure of a practice can change as the intervention scales. Additionally, grantees may want to consider how their project will balance implementation fidelity and flexibility for scaling.
Note: The EIR program statute refers to high-need students” but does not define the term, which allows applicants to define it for purposes of their proposed project, population, and setting. Addressing the needs of underserved students is one way to address EIR's statutory requirement to serve high-need students.” In particular, the Department welcomes innovative and effective projects that serve disconnected youth, students who are in foster care, and students performing significantly below grade level.
This notice invites applications for Mid-phase grants only.
In FY 2024, the Department is particularly interested in projects that propose services and activities that help students recover from the COVID–19 pandemic, accelerate learning and academic achievement, reimagine schools, and transform our education system.
The FY 2024 Mid-phase grant competition includes five absolute priorities and two competitive preference priorities. All Mid-phase grant applicants must address Absolute Priority 1. Mid-phase grant applicants are also required to address one of the other four absolute priorities (applicants may not submit under more than one of the other four absolute priorities). All applicants have the option of addressing the competitive preference priorities and may opt to do so regardless of the absolute priority they select.
Through these priorities, the Department intends to advance innovation, build evidence, and address the learning and achievement of underserved and high-need students in Pre-K through grade 12.