The Department of Education (Education) awarded about $6 billion in discretionary grants during fiscal year 2023, with the largest proportion of grant programs administered by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE). These grants are awarded competitively to recipients such as states and school districts. Education sometimes establishes priorities to guide its grantmaking. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine Education's priorities for discretionary grants over time. This report provides that information, along with how often Education has announced department-wide priorities since 2001, and the statutory authority Education cited when establishing department-wide priorities. It also describes how the number and themes of department-wide and program-specific priorities per grant announcement compare across the three largest OESE discretionary grant programs: (1) School Safety National Activities, (2) Education Innovation and Research, and (3) Charter Schools Program. GAO analyzed "Federal Register" announcements for all department-wide priorities published from 2001, categorized by themes and identified by using a content analysis of department-wide and program-specific priority language. GAO found that Education announced department-wide priorities 15 times between November 2001 and December 2021. Some priorities replace previous ones, so not all department-wide priorities are still in use. Priorities covered topics such as teacher professional development and high school graduation rates. It was also found that among the three largest discretionary grant programs within OESE, the number of priorities per grant announcement ranged from zero to 10 between 2001 and 2024. Across the three programs, the following priority themes were cited most frequently: (1) serving specific populations or geographic areas to improve academic outcomes or access to charter schools; (2) promoting or improving education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics or computer science; and (3) promoting equity in student access to educational resources and opportunities.