The Call for Effective Technology (CET) program identifies and supports the development, implementation, and evaluation of promising AI-powered and educational technology tools.
Donor Name: Accelerate
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 02/20/2026
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
CET prioritizes tools that enable personalized learning and instructional effectiveness for public school students. The programmatic focus is on improving academic outcomes in all content areas – especially mathematics and reading – while ensuring equitable access across diverse student populations.
Through evaluation of educational technology tools in school settings, the CET grant program shapes evidence-based policies and quality standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and tech integration in education. All of Accelerate’s grantmaking is in service of policy and scale; while they fund individual organizations, the ultimate goal is to generate evidence that informs meaningful policy changes and drives rapid adoption of effective solutions for students across the country. CET seeks applications from organizations with existing tools or solutions ready to be deployed in schools in the 2026-27 school year that are grounded in established learning science and evidence-based practices.
This grant supports promising educational technology tools that are ready for implementation and evaluation in authentic learning environments. Accelerate’s grantmaking serves the larger purpose of generating actionable evidence to inform state policy and accelerate the adoption of effective tools at scale. By funding both implementation and research, the program will:
- Support the development of effective ed-tech and AI solutions through evidence-based iteration
- Identify implementation factors that maximize impact in diverse educational settings
- Build an initial evidence base for promising tools with potential to improve student outcomes
- Establish quality benchmarks and evidence-informed best practices (e.g., minimum usage) for effective educational technology and AI integration in classrooms
Funding Information
Grant amounts are determined by the methodological rigor of the evaluation:
- $250,000 – ESSA Tier 1 (strong evidence) study design
- $200,000 – ESSA Tier 2 (moderate evidence) study design
- $150,000 – ESSA Tier 3 (promising evidence) study design.
Uses of Funds
Funds can be flexibly used to support:
- Program implementation
- Technology development and adaptation
- Costs related to evaluation activities.
Eligibility Criteria
- Educational technology developers and tutoring providers (both nonprofit and for-profit) with AI-powered or tech-enabled learning solutions in all content areas, especially for mathematics and reading
- Curriculum developers seeking to deploy AI or ed-tech tools that supplement or enhance their high-quality instructional materials (HQIM)
- EdTech accelerators, incubators, and support organizations that partner directly with learning technology providers
- School districts, charter management organizations, and traditional and public charter schools that have developed their own technology or AI solutions or have access to student-level product data from the tool they are implementing.
- Districts without access to product data should coordinate with the tool provider to submit a joint application, with the provider as lead applicant.
- One application per registered organization will be accepted and reviewed (separate legal entities [e.g., a nonprofit and its for-profit subsidiary] may each submit one application).
For more information, visit Accelerate.
