The U.S. Department of Education has awarded more than $15.1 million in Enhanced Assessment Grants (EAGs) to three state education agencies—North Carolina, Maryland and Texas—to develop or enhance their Kindergarten Entry Assessments (KEA).
North Carolina’s award amounts to more than $6.1 million. In addition to Arizona, other states in the consortium include Maine, as well as Delaware, Iowa, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C. and South Carolina as a collaborating state. The grant will be used to enhance a K-3 assessment system, helping improve student outcomes and promote early learning.
The Maryland grant, in the amount of $4.9 million, is part of a seven-state consortium, including Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio. The grant will be used to enhance a multistate, state-of-the-art assessment system composed of a KEA and aligned formative assessments.
Texas’s award totaling $3.9 million will fund a proposal to implement the Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment System that enhances the quality and variety of assessment instruments and systems used by the state’s school districts, which serve more than 5 million students—including up to 400,000 incoming kindergarten students.
The primary measure of a school’s success under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is proficiency on state assessments. The EAGs can be used to improve the quality, validity and reliability of state academic assessments; measure student academic achievement using multiple measures; chart student progress over time; and evaluate student academic achievement through the development of comprehensive academic assessment instruments.
The EAG program is administered by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. For additional information on the program and these new awards, visit www.ed.gov/programs/eag. Information about potential opportunities for Maine schools as a result of this grant award will be communicated in a future Commissioner’s Update.
More information
- Jaci Holmes
Federal State Legislative Liaison
207-624-6669
jaci.holmes@maine.gov