Competitive Grants for State Assessments

The Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education funds development and improvement of state academic assessment systems through Competitive Grants for State Assessments (CGSA), CFDA 84.368, with the most recent grant awards made on October 1, 2024.

The program supports concrete assessment-development activities: improving the quality, validity, and reliability of state academic assessments; developing or improving models to measure student progress or growth; creating assessments for English learners, including English language proficiency assessments and assessments in languages other than English; building assessments for children with disabilities, including alternate assessments aligned to alternate academic achievement standards; and developing performance-based, technology-based, computer adaptive, or extended performance task assessments that measure critical thinking, writing, and problem-solving skills. Recent awards demonstrate active work on through-year assessment initiatives, multilingual and multimodal science inventories, formative assessment systems, and accessible pathways for students with sensory disabilities and English learners.

All 89 grants in the portfolio are Project Grants. The Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education dominates funding, accounting for 88 awards and $218.8 million in federal dollars obligated; a second Department of Education entity awarded 1 grant for $1.9 million. Combined federal funding across the program totals $220.8 million, with an additional $43 million in non-federal cost-share, indicating the program does not mandate matching contributions. Award magnitude clusters around $3 million to $4 million, though awards range from under $1 million to nearly $47 million (the 2019 Collaborative for the Alternate Assessment of English Language Proficiency project).

Recent grant activity is robust. The program awarded 10 grants in October 2024, continuing a trend of 5–11 awards annually over the past five years. Representative recent awards include Accessible Pathways for Multilingual Learners with Low-Incidence Sensory Disabilities ($4 million), iLearn Through-Year Assessment Initiative ($2.99 million), Student Choice in Constructed Responses ($4.7 million), and Scaling Montana Aligned to Standards Through-Year Assessment ($4 million).

A Competitive Grants for State Assessments opportunity posted April 30, 2026, with a June 16, 2026 due date is open to state governments. The FY 2026 solicitation includes two absolute priorities (developing innovative assessment item types and meaningful learning opportunities), three competitive preference priorities (improving assessment scoring and score reporting, assessing student growth, and comprehensive academic assessment instruments), and two invitational priorities (assessment and data literacy, and comprehensive assessment systems). State educational agencies and consortia of SEAs are the eligible applicant pool. Project periods extend up to 48 months.