Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Investing in Innovation (I3) Fund: VALIDATION GRANTS CFDA Number 84.411B

 

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. Purpose of Program: The Investing in Innovation Fund (i3), established under section 14007 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), provides funding to support (1) local educational agencies (LEAs), and (2) nonprofit organizations in partnership with (a) one or more LEAs or (b) a consortium of schools. The i3 program is designed to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and to support the expansion of effective solutions to serve substantially larger numbers of students. The central design element of the i3 program is its multi-tier structure that links the amount of funding that an applicant may receive to the quality of the evidence supporting the efficacy of the proposed project. Applicants proposing practices supported by limited evidence can receive relatively small grants that support the development and initial evaluation of promising practices and help to identify new solutions to pressing challenges; applicants proposing practices supported by evidence from rigorous evaluations, such as large randomized controlled trials, can receive sizable grants to support expansion across the country. This structure provides incentives for applicants to build evidence of effectiveness of their proposed projects and to address the barriers to serving more students across schools, districts, and States. As importantly, all i3 projects are required to generate additional evidence of effectiveness. All i3 grantees must use part of their budgets to conduct independent evaluations (as defined in this notice) of their projects. This ensures that projects funded under the i3 program contribute significantly to improving the information available to practitioners and policymakers about which practices work, for which types of students, and in what contexts. The Department awards three types of grants under this program: ``Development'' grants, ``Validation'' grants, and ``Scale-up'' grants. These grants differ in terms of the level of prior evidence of effectiveness required for consideration of funding, the level of scale the funded project should reach, and, consequently, the amount of funding available to support the project. This notice invites applications for Validation grants only. The notice inviting applications for Scale-up grants is published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register. The notice inviting applications for Development grants was published in the Federal Register on March 30, 2015 (80 FR 16648) and is available at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-03-30/pdf/2015-07213.pdf. Validation grants provide funding to support expansion of projects supported by moderate evidence of effectiveness (as defined in this notice) to the national level (as defined in this notice) or regional level (as defined in this notice). Validation grants must further assess the effectiveness of the i3-supported practice through a rigorous evaluation, with particular focus on the populations for, and the contexts in, which the practice is most effective. We expect and consider it appropriate that each applicant propose to use the Validation funding to build its capacity to deliver the i3-supported practice, particularly early in the funding period, to successfully reach the level of scale proposed in its application. Additionally, we expect each applicant to address any specific barriers to the growth or scaling of the organization or practice (including barriers related to cost-effectiveness) in order to deliver the i3-supported practice at the proposed level of scale and provide strategies to address these barriers as part of its proposed scaling plan. All Validation grantees must evaluate the effectiveness of the practice that the supported project implements and expands. We expect that these evaluations will be conducted in a variety of contexts and for a variety of students, will identify the core elements of the practice, and will codify the practices to support adoption or replication by the applicant and other entities. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number: 84.411B (Validation grants). Applications for grants under the i3 program, CFDA number 84.411B (Validation grants), must be submitted electronically using the Governmentwide Grants.gov Apply site at www.Grants.gov. Through this site, you will be able to download a copy of the application package, complete it offline, and then upload and submit your application. You may not email an electronic copy of a grant application to us. You may access the electronic grant application for the i3 program at www.Grants.gov. You must search for the downloadable application package for this competition by the CFDA number. Do not include the CFDA number's alpha suffix in your search (e.g., search for 84.411, not 84.411B).

Deleted 09/03/2015 (Archived.) ED-GRANTS-060515-002 Agency: Department of Education Cooperative Agreement, Grant 2 Eligible Applicants: Entities eligible to apply for i3 grants include either of the following: (a) An LEA. (b) A partnership between a nonprofit organization and-- (1) One or more LEAs; or (2) A consortium of schools. Statutory Eligibility Requirements: Except as specifically set forth in the Note about Eligibility for an Eligible Applicant that Includes a Nonprofit Organization that follows, to be eligible for an award, an eligible applicant must-- (a)(1) Have significantly closed the achievement gaps between groups of students described in section 1111(b)(2) of the ESEA (economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial and ethnic groups, students with limited English proficiency, students with disabilities); or (2) Have demonstrated success in significantly increasing student academic achievement for all groups of students described in that section; (b) Have made significant improvements in other areas, such as high school graduation rates (as defined in this notice) or increased recruitment and placement of high-quality teachers and principals, as demonstrated with meaningful data; (c) Demonstrate that it has established one or more partnerships with the private sector, which may include philanthropic organizations, and that organizations in the private sector will provide matching funds in order to help bring results to scale; and (d) In the case of an eligible applicant that includes a nonprofit organization, provide in the application the names of the LEAs with which the nonprofit organization will partner, or the names of the schools in the consortium with which it will partner. If an eligible applicant that includes a nonprofit organization intends to partner with additional LEAs or schools that are not named in the application, it must describe in the application the demographic and other characteristics of these LEAs and schools and the process it will use to select them. Note: An entity submitting an application should provide, in Appendix C, under ``Other Attachments Form,'' of its application, information addressing the eligibility requirements described in this section. An applicant must provide, in its application, sufficient supporting data or other information to allow the Department to determine whether the applicant has met the eligibility requirements. Note that in order to address the statutory eligibility requirement above, applicants must provide data that demons Applications Available: June 8, 2015. Deadline for Notice of Intent to Apply: June 25, 2015. We will be able to develop a more efficient process for reviewing grant applications if we know the approximate number of applicants that intend to app 08/04/2015 This program has cost sharing or matching requirements. Julius Cotton
ED Grants.gov FIND Systems Admin.
Phone 202-245-6288
EducationGrantInquiries@ed.gov
Program Manager:
Kelly Terpak,
U.S. Department of Education,
400 Maryland Avenue SW., Room 4C107,
Washington, DC 20202-5930.
Telephone: (202) 453-7122. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-06-05/pdf/2015-13672.pdf i3@ed.gov $24,000,000.00 Awards up to $12,000,000.00