Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Innovation and Early Learning Programs: Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program Mid-Phase Grants Assistance Listing Number 84.411B | ED GRANTS 050624 002

Opportunity Information: Apply for ED GRANTS 050624 002

The U.S. Department of Education, through the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), is offering a discretionary grant competition under the Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program for Mid-Phase Grants (Assistance Listing Number 84.411B). This opportunity is aimed at supporting education innovations that are already showing promise and are ready for a larger, more rigorous test. The program comes out of section 4611 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended, and it focuses on improving student achievement and educational attainment for high-need students by backing entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated approaches and requiring strong evaluation of results.

A key feature of EIR is its tiered structure, which connects how much funding a project can receive to how strong the existing evidence is behind the intervention. EIR is designed to help innovations move along a pathway: early ideas are first tested and refined (Early-phase), then validated with stronger research (Mid-phase), and finally expanded to serve many more students once effectiveness is well established (Expansion). This specific notice is only for Mid-phase grants, meaning applicants are expected to bring an intervention that already has moderate evidence of effectiveness, and then use federal support to implement it at a larger scale while conducting a rigorous evaluation that measures both impact and cost-effectiveness.

Mid-phase grants are meant for programs that have been successfully implemented before, either under an EIR Early-phase grant or through a similar local development and testing effort. The point is not just to run the program again, but to study it carefully in real-world settings and produce credible findings about what it does for students, for whom it works best, and what it costs relative to the outcomes. In other words, the Department is looking for projects that are beyond the pilot stage and are prepared to generate stronger evidence that could justify future scaling through later EIR tiers.

Eligibility is broad but structured. Applicants may include local educational agencies (LEAs), state educational agencies (SEAs), the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), consortia of SEAs or LEAs, and nonprofit organizations. There is also a partnership pathway: an LEA, SEA, BIE, or eligible consortium may apply in partnership with a nonprofit organization, a business, an educational service agency, or an institution of higher education (IHE). The notice also clarifies how nonprofit status can be documented under federal rules (34 CFR 75.51), such as IRS 501(c)(3) recognition or comparable state documentation, and it explains which types of higher education entities may participate. For instance, IHEs can be partners, and certain nonprofit-affiliated or 501(c)(3) public IHE entities may be eligible, but a public IHE without 501(c)(3) status would not qualify as a nonprofit applicant on its own.

The competition includes specific guidance for applicants seeking to qualify as rural. To be considered a rural applicant, the applicant must meet two conditions: first, the applicant must be an eligible entity tied to an LEA with an NCES urban-centric locale code of 32, 33, 41, 42, or 43 (or a consortium/partner arrangement based on such LEAs); and second, a majority of the schools served must also have one of those locale codes (or a combination of them). The notice points applicants to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) district and school search tools to verify locale codes, and it notes that additional rural eligibility detail will be provided in the application package.

From the posted opportunity data, the funding opportunity number is ED GRANTS 050624 002, the original application deadline is July 5, 2024, and the award ceiling is $10,000,000 per grant. The Department anticipates making about 8 awards. Because this is a Federal Register-based competition, the synopsis emphasizes that the official requirements, priorities, selection criteria, performance measures, and submission instructions are contained in the formal Federal Register notice and the Department’s Revised Common Instructions for Applicants to Department of Education Discretionary Grant Programs (published December 7, 2022). Applicants are expected to rely on those official sources for the exact rules on how to apply, what must be included in the proposal, and how the Department will judge applications.

• The Department of Education in the education sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Innovation and Early Learning Programs: Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program Mid-Phase Grants Assistance Listing Number 84.411B" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 84.411.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-05-06.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-07-05. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Independent school districts, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Others.

Apply for ED GRANTS 050624 002

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