Education Department Proposes New Grant Priorities: Attendance, Apprenticeships and Foster Care Support, With Comments Due December 7
The U.S. Department of Education on November 5 published a proposal in the Federal Register that would rewrite, over 18 pages, the supplemental priorities the department uses to judge its discretionary grant competitions. The proposal would amend four sets of supplemental priorities adopted in 2025 and 2026.
The draft adds new emphasis on student attendance, apprenticeships, foster and kinship care, student parents, school-board governance, cybersecurity and the evidence standards applied to education technology. It would also broaden the department's definition of education choice, allowing future competitions to favor projects that help student parents obtain child care and other supports, improve educational stability for children in foster or kinship care, and connect postsecondary students with talent marketplaces, pre-apprenticeships and Registered Apprenticeships — programs that combine paid workplace learning with classroom instruction.
Within the 'meaningful learning' priority, the draft adds student attendance and engagement as an eligible focus. Attendance is widely seen as a consequential lever for achievement, and the proposal invites applicants to build it into project designs.
The department stresses what the document is not: it is a proposed framework, not a funding notice. It does not create a new grant program and does not guarantee money for any listed activity. Supplemental priorities are selection tools, not appropriations — they tilt how federal dollars are awarded, rather than awarding the dollars themselves.
Comments on the proposal are due December 7. The department will consider relevant submissions before issuing a final version that would shape future discretionary grant competitions across its programs.
(Source: U.S. Department of Education; Federal Register)
Source: U.S. Department of Education; Federal Register
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国教育部总部林登·约翰逊大楼标识，位于华盛顿特区。图片来自 Wikimedia Commons，CC BY 4.0。 / Signage of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education, in Washington, D.C. Image via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
