U.S. Department of Education Announces Newly Proposed Discretionary Grant Priorities

The U.S. Department of Education (US ED) has announced several proposed priorities for discretionary grant programs.

First, the Final Priority for Discretionary Grant Programs supports alignment between the US ED discretionary grant investments and the Trump Administration’s Opportunity Zones initiative in an effort to support students, teachers, and parents in economically distressed communities officially selected as Opportunity Zones.

Second, six Administrative Priorities for Discretionary Grant Programs expand the department’s flexibility to support a broader range of applicants with varying experience in managing federal funds (Priorities 1 and 2), applicants proposing to serve rural communities (Priorities 3 and 4), applicants demonstrating a rationale for their proposed projects (Priority 5), or applicants proposing to collect data after the grant’s original project period (Priority 6).

The Final Priority for Discretionary Grant Programs will allow the agency to focus on grantees that do their work in Opportunity Zones, grantees that are located in a zone, and grantees that will increase the impact of each federal dollar by partnering with a Qualified Opportunity Fund. Governors have selected over 8,700 Opportunity Zones with substantially higher poverty rates, higher rates of unemployment, lower median household income, and lower rates of educational attainment, on average, than the rest of the country.

The six Administrative Priorities for Discretionary Grant Programs priorities are intended to promote greater innovation.