Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): American History and Civics Education: National Activities Grants CFDA Number 84.422B | ED GRANTS 071117 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for ED GRANTS 071117 001

The Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) American History and Civics Education: National Activities Grants program (CFDA 84.422B) is a discretionary grant opportunity from the U.S. Department of Education designed to strengthen how American history, civics and government, and geography are taught and learned in K-12 settings. The central aim is to promote innovative instruction, effective learning strategies, and high-quality professional development for educators, with a clear emphasis on projects that meaningfully benefit low-income students and other underserved populations. In practice, the program is looking for efforts that do more than offer one-time trainings or isolated curriculum products; it is oriented toward approaches that can show evidence of effectiveness, improve student learning outcomes, and be shared or expanded beyond a single classroom or school.

The grant competition supports a wide range of project activities across the full lifecycle of an educational initiative. Applicants may propose to develop new evidence-based instructional approaches, implement and refine promising practices in real school environments, expand programs that already show results, evaluate outcomes to build stronger evidence, and disseminate what is learned so other educators and systems can adopt or adapt successful models. The subjects of focus are specifically American history, civics and government, and geography at the elementary and secondary levels, and the overall framing encourages projects that connect content learning with strong pedagogy and educator capacity-building.

The notice highlights several priorities that shape what types of proposals are most competitive. There is an absolute priority for projects that serve high-need students, reflecting the program goal of improving outcomes for students who often have fewer educational opportunities or resources. There is also an absolute priority for projects that demonstrate potential to improve both student achievement and the quality of teaching in these subjects, while showing innovation, scalability, and accountability, and keeping underserved populations at the center of the work. In other words, applicants are expected not only to propose strong ideas, but also to show how those ideas can be implemented responsibly, assessed with credible methods, and scaled or replicated in ways that could influence broader practice.

In addition to the absolute priorities, the competition includes a competitive preference priority for projects that leverage technology to support professional development and instructional practice. This signals that proposals may gain an edge if they use technology in a purposeful way, such as enabling high-quality online or blended professional learning, supporting instructional coaching at a distance, improving access to content and teaching resources, or increasing student engagement through well-designed digital tools. The emphasis is not on technology for its own sake, but on technology as a practical lever for improving teaching and accelerating learning, especially where access and capacity are uneven.

A key application requirement is that each proposal must include project-specific performance measures and performance targets aligned to the project objectives, consistent with federal requirements under 34 CFR 75.110(b) and (c). This means applicants need to define how success will be measured, what outcomes they expect to achieve, and how progress will be tracked over time. The intent is to ensure that funded projects can be monitored for results and that they produce usable evidence about what works, for whom, and under what conditions.

Eligibility is broad but tied to demonstrated capability. Eligible applicants include institutions of higher education (public, private, and state-controlled) as well as nonprofit and for-profit organizations, provided they can show expertise in developing evidence-based approaches that have the potential to improve the quality of learning and teaching in American history, civics and government, or geography. The opportunity also allows group or consortium applications when multiple eligible entities want to apply together, as long as they follow the federal procedures for group applications in 34 CFR 75.127 through 75.129. This structure supports partnerships that combine complementary strengths, such as a university research team working with a nonprofit curriculum developer and school districts to implement and evaluate a professional development model.

The application process is electronic-only through Grants.gov, and applicants are expected to locate the application package by searching the CFDA number without the letter suffix (search 84.422, not 84.422B). Applications cannot be submitted by email. The public synopsis notes an original closing date of August 21, 2017, and indicates an expectation of about seven awards, though the synopsis does not specify an award ceiling amount in the provided text. As with many federal education competitions, the official and controlling details (including exact requirements, selection criteria, performance reporting expectations, and priority language) are in the Federal Register notice, and applicants are directed to rely on that official notice for complete guidance.

• The Department of Education in the education sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): American History and Civics Education: National Activities Grants CFDA Number 84.422B" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 84.422.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-07-11.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-08-21. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 7 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, Others.

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