Final Priorities and Definitions-Secretary's Supplemental Priorities and Definitions on Evidence-Based Literacy, Education Choice, and Returning Education to the States

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <CFR>34 CFR Part 75</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID ED-2025-OS-0020]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Final Priorities and Definitions—Secretary's Supplemental Priorities and Definitions on Evidence-Based Literacy, Education Choice, and Returning Education to the States</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final priorities and definitions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Education (Department) announces three priorities and related definitions for use in currently authorized discretionary grant programs or programs that may be authorized in the future. The Secretary may choose to use an entire priority for a grant program or a particular competition or use one or more of the priority's component parts. These priorities and definitions replace the Secretary's supplemental priorities published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 10, 2021 (86 FR 70612) and all other agency-wide supplemental priorities published prior to January 20, 2025. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The priorities and definitions are effective October 9, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Zachary Rogers, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20202-6450. Telephone: (202) 260-1144. Email: <E T="03">SSP@ed.gov.</E> If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Purpose of This Regulatory Action:</E> On May 21, 2025, the Department published a notice of proposed supplemental priorities and definitions (NPP) in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 21710). These final priorities and definitions may be used across the Department's discretionary grant programs. <E T="03">Summary of the Major Provisions of This Regulatory Action:</E> Through this regulatory action, we establish three supplemental priorities and associated definitions. Each major provision is discussed in the <E T="03">Public Comment</E> section of this document. <E T="03">Program Authority:</E> 20 U.S.C. 1221e-3, 3474, 6301 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> 5 U.S.C. 311 <E T="03">et seq.</E> The NPP in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> published on May 21, 2025, (90 FR 21710) contained background information and our reasons for proposing the priorities and definitions. There are differences between the proposed priorities and definitions and the final priorities and definitions established in this notice of final priorities and definitions (NFP), as discussed in the <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes</E> section in this document. <E T="03">Public Comment:</E> In response to our invitation in the NPP, more than 1,500 parties submitted comments on the proposed priorities and definitions. Generally, we do not address technical and other minor changes, or suggested changes that the law does not authorize us to make under applicable statutory authority. In addition, we do not address general comments regarding concerns not directly related to the proposed priorities or definitions. <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes:</E> An analysis of the comments and of any changes in the priorities and definitions since publication of the NPP follows. <HD SOURCE="HD1">General Comments</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Many commenters appreciated the Department's focus on core issues such as evidence-based literacy, education choice, and State flexibility, noting their importance. Additionally, commenters provided feedback noting their appreciation for the clarity of the priorities and their agreement that Federal involvement often led to burdensome compliance requirements and limited local flexibility. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> Thank you to all the commenters who expressed support for the priorities. The Department appreciates the support for the prioritization of evidence-based literacy, education choice, and returning education to the States. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <E T="03">Comments:</E> Many commenters expressed general opposition to the Department's proposed priorities. In so expressing their general opposition, some of these commenters advocated for the priorities issued by the Department under the Biden Administration in 2021 or expressed support for specific themes from those priorities, such as social and emotional learning (SEL); diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs; teacher diversity; and equity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Two commenters noted that they believed that the 2021 priorities were a tool to incentivize equal educational opportunities and welcoming school environments, which the commenters thought were important. Regarding SEL and DEI programs under the Biden Administration, commenters advocated for the continuation and expansion of these programs. Commenters cited research on SEL as it relates to students' self-management and regulation, interpersonal relationships, mental health, and academic achievement. Commenters also emphasized their belief that DEI initiatives are crucial to fostering inclusive environments and ensuring civil rights for all students, regardless of their background. Some commenters suggested that by removing the 2021 priorities, which had a focus on DEI, the Department runs the risk of grantees violating Federal civil rights law. Several commenters advocated for including SEL approaches, including trauma-informed practices, in Priority 1 with regard to how literacy is taught. Other commenters suggested that Priority 1 provides for additional services to support student well-being, such as health care and mental health, with one commenter naming a Full-Service Community Schools project that helps to provide these types of supports. Additional commenters expressed opposition to SEL. One commenter stated that teachers are already overwhelmed with instructional responsibilities, that knowledgeable and compassionate teachers can nurture students, and that other institutions outside of school can provide social and emotional learning opportunities. Another commenter, while appreciating the intent behind SEL, noted that a focus on SEL may divert time away from academic instruction, lead to higher administrative costs due to additional staff and resources, and may reflect political or ideologic biases that do not align with all families' views. The commenter also stated that SEL programs are difficult to assess. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> While the Department appreciates the comments regarding the 2021 Secretary's Supplemental Priorities, this Administration is focused on addressing the urgent challenges highlighted by the abysmal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores in literacy, expanding learning options, and making sure decisions in education are made closest to the child. These priorities do not change the enforcement of Federal civil rights laws. Rather, it is necessary to repeal the 2021 priorities because they encourage recipients to violate Federal civil rights law—particularly Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—by using race-based preferences and stereotypes, and racial exclusion in their programs and to use Federal funds to promote or endorse gender ideology and political activism. Additionally, the 2021 priorities are not consistent with this Administration's focus on merit, fairness, and excellence, nor did they center educational decisions with parents and States who understand their children and communities best. The Department has long had the discretionary authority to focus grant funds through supplemental priorities, which it has done across several administrations. With regard to Priority 1, the priority rightly avoids references to social and emotional learning. It is essential that literacy instruction is grounded in explicit, systematic, and intentional instruction in phonological awareness, phonic decoding, oral and sign language, vocabulary, language structure, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and writing supported by strong and moderate evidence-based research. Comments promoting ideological or activist frameworks are misplaced and detract from the proven methods that truly support student achievement. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <E T="03">Comments:</E> Many commenters expressed concerns about the availability of Federal funds. Some commenters were concerned about appropriated funds that the Department had not yet awarded, while others were concerned that incentivizing or re-directing funds to State-level entities to advance Priority 3 or to continue efforts to close the Department of Education would result in reduced funding and support in the future. Commenters questioned the potential impacts of reduced funding, noting for example, the impacts on personnel, academic programming and services, protections, and the identification of and services to specific populations or students ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> students with disabilities, homeless students, students in the juvenile justice or foster care systems, English learners, young learners with disabilities, Black students, and other underserved students). Others noted the difficulties that decreases in funding will have on rural districts and communities. Many of these commenters called for the Department to continue education funding, with some requesting that the Department maintain funding under specific statutes, programs, or content areas. Several commenters suggested maintaining funding for the TRIO programs. Some are concerned that the Department's emphasis on “education choice” and shifting control of education to States may result in less funding or support for thes ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 140k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━