[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 116 (Monday, June 17, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 41221-41224]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-15295]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
[CFDA No.: 84.350A]
Transition to Teaching Program; Notice Inviting Applications for
New Awards for Fiscal Year (FY) 2002
Purposes of Program: The Transition to Teaching program supports
the recruitment and retention of highly qualified mid-career
professionals, school paraprofessionals, and recent college graduates
as teachers in high-need schools, through use of existing, or
development and enhancement of new, alternative routes to
certification.
Eligible Applicants: A State educational agency (SEA); a high-need
local educational agency (LEA); a for-profit or nonprofit organization
with a proven record of effectively recruiting and retaining highly
qualified teachers, in partnership with a high-need LEA or an SEA; an
institution of higher education (IHE), in partnership with a high-need
LEA or an SEA; a regional consortium of SEAs; or a consortium of high-
need LEAs.
Application Available: June 17, 2002.
Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: August 1, 2002.
Deadline for Intergovernmental Review: September 30, 2002.
Estimated Available Funds: Approximately $35,000,000. The
Department has established separate funding categories for projects of
different scope. These categories are (1) national/regional projects,
where placement of teachers would be in LEAs in more than one State;
(2) statewide projects, where placement of teachers would be statewide
or in LEAs scattered across a particular State; and (3) local projects,
where placement of teachers would be in one LEA or in two or more LEAs
located in close proximity to one another.
The estimated available funds for each category is as follows:
National/regional projects: $7,750,000; Statewide projects:
$15,000,000; Local projects: $12,500,000.
Funds available in future years depend on the level of
Congressional appropriations.
Estimated Range of Awards: National/regional projects--$300,000-
$1,200,000 per year; Statewide projects--$150,000-$600,000 per year;
Local projects--$50,000-$400,000 per year.
Estimated Average Size of Awards: National/regional projects--
$750,000 per year; Statewide projects--$375,000 per year; Local
projects--$225,000 per year.
Estimated Number of Awards: National/regional grants--10; Statewide
grants--37; Local grants--60.
Maximum Awards: The maximum award amounts are expected to be
$1,200,000 per year for a National/Regional project, $600,000 per year
for a Statewide project, or $400,000 per year for a Local project.
Absent exceptional circumstances, the Department does not intend to
make awards in excess of these amounts.
Note: The Department is not bound by any estimates in this
notice.
Project Period: Up to 60 months.
Applicable Regulations: (a) The Education Department General
Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) in 34 CFR part, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80,
82, 85, 86, 97, 98, and 99. (b) The special rules announced in this
notice.
Page Limit. The application narrative is where applicants address
the selection criteria that reviewers use to evaluate applications.
Applicants must limit the narrative to the equivalent of no more than
50 pages, using the following standards:
A page is 8.5'' x 11'', on one side only, with 1'' margins
at the top, bottom and both sides.
[[Page 41222]]
Double space (no more than three lines per vertical inch)
all text in the application narrative, including titles, headings,
footnotes, quotations, references, and captions, as well as all text in
charts, tables, figures, and graphs.
Use a font that is either 12-point or larger or no smaller
than 10 pitch (characters per inch).
For charts, tables, and graphs, also use a font that is
either 12-point or larger or no smaller than 10-pitch. Reviewers will
not read any pages of applications that--
Exceed the page limit if one applies these standards; or
Exceed the equivalent of the page limit if one applies
other standards.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed
the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Pub. L. 107-110) (NCLB) into law.
NCLB, which substantially revises the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), is intended to provide all of America's
students with the opportunity and means to achieve academic success. It
embodies the four key principles of the President's education reform
plan: (1) Accountability for results, (2) expanded State and local
flexibility and reduced ``red tape,'' (3) expanded choices for parents,
and (4) focusing resources on proven educational methods.
These principles aim to produce fundamental reforms in classrooms
throughout America. NCLB provides officials and educators at the
school, school district, and State levels substantial flexibility to
plan and implement school programs that will help close the achievement
gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. At the
same time, the reauthorized Act holds school officials accountable--to
parents, students, and the public--for achieving results. These and
other major changes to the ESEA redefine the Federal role in K-12
education to focus on improving the academic performance of all
students.
The full text of this law may be found on the Internet at: http://www.ed.gov/legislation/ESEA02/.
Ensuring that all students in this Nation succeed academically will
require America's schools to hire and retain high-quality teachers as
never before. Our responsibility to ensure that all students meet
challenging content and performance standards, and ensure that no child
is left behind, means that the 2.2 million teachers that our schools
will need to hire over the next ten years will need to have thorough
subject-matter knowledge of the areas they teach and effective teaching
skills.
Yet many of our highest-need schools and LEAs are hard pressed to
find enough well-qualified applicants, particularly in such fields as
mathematics and science. As school enrollments continue to grow and
retirements from the current teacher force increase, the Nation's
teacher recruitment and preparation challenges will grow even more
daunting.
Recognizing the importance of highly qualified teachers, Congress
created in Title II of the ESEA a means for helping schools and LEAs to
prepare, recruit, and retain highly qualified teachers and principals.
The Transition to Teaching program is one of the components of Title
II. It is designed to help the Nation's most severely pressed LEAs to
supplement their efforts to secure highly qualified teachers by
enabling those LEAs to hire and retain as teachers talented candidates
from other professions and nontraditional backgrounds. The program does
so by--
(1) Making use, or fostering the development and enhancement of,
State-sanctioned alternative routes to teaching;
(2) Supporting both recruitment efforts to find teacher candidates
from non-traditional backgrounds, and the financial incentives these
candidates may need to make the career change into teaching;
(3) Helping these teacher candidates to gain State certification;
and
(4) Making available quality mentoring and other follow-up support
during these individuals' initial years in the classroom.
Priority
Under 34 CFR 75.105(c)(2)(i), the Department awards a competitive
preference to an application that meets the following statutory
priority:
Consistent with the statutory priority in ESEA section 2313(c), the
Secretary awards five (5) additional points to a partnership or
consortium that includes either a ``high-need LEA'' or a ``high-need
SEA.'' See the ``Definitions'' section of this notice for the meaning
of these terms.
Waiver of Proposed Rulemaking: It is the Secretary's practice, in
accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553), to
offer interested parties the opportunity to comment on proposed rules
and competitive preferences. Section 437(d)(1) of the General Education
Provisions Act (GEPA), however, allows the Secretary to exempt from
rulemaking requirements rules governing the first grant competition
under a new or substantially revised program authority (20 U.S.C.
1232(d)(1)). The Secretary, in accordance with section 437(d)(1) of
GEPA, has decided to forego public comment in order to ensure timely
grant awards.
Requirements for FY 2002 Competition
Selection Criteria. The Secretary will use selection criteria in
section 75.209 of EDGAR to evaluate each application. An applicant may
earn up to 100 points on the basis of its response to these selection
criteria. The general subject areas and the corresponding maximum
number of points are:
Need for Project (10 points)
Quality of the Project Design (25 points)
Quality of Project Services (20 points)
Quality of Project Personnel (10 points)
Adequacy of Resources (10 points)
Quality of the Management Plan (10 points)
Quality of the Project Evaluation (15 points)
A full statement of the section criteria, and required application
descriptions that must be provided in response to these criteria, is
contained in the application package for this program.
Requirements For Application Content. ESEA section 2313(d)(2)
identifies information that must be included in any application the
Department would fund. As explained in the program's application
package, we are requiring applicants to address this information in
response to specific selection criteria.
Definitions. For purposes of the Transition to Teaching Program--
``High-need LEA'' means an LEA that--
1. (a) Serves not fewer than 10,000 children from families with
incomes below the poverty line, or (b) for which not less than 20
percent of the children served by the LEA are from families with
incomes below the poverty line, and
2. For which there is (a) a high percentage of teachers not
teaching in the academic subjects or grade levels the teachers were
trained to teach, or (b) a high percentage of teachers with emergency,
provisional, or temporary certification or licensing. See ESEA section
2102(3).
Applicants will need to include information in their applications
that demonstrates that they, or the LEA(s) with which they will work,
meet this definition.
Note: For purposes of the four elements of this statutory
definition of high-need LEA:
1. (a) The total number of children in poverty, as referenced
above, can be found on the Census Bureau Web site at: http://www.census.gov/housing/saipe/sd97/.
[[Page 41223]]
This site reports the number of children in poverty for every
school district in the United States. Locate the file for your State's
data, and find your LEA. The sixth column provides the number of
children in poverty.
1. (b) LEA poverty rates referenced in 1(b) of the definition of
high-need LEA can be accessed on the Department's Web site at the
following address: www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/reap.html.
See at this address ``Application Instructions'' and find the
appropriate spreadsheet for the ``State'' in which the LEA is located.
Column 11 identifies the percentage of an LEA's children from families
below the poverty line. These poverty rates are available for LEAs that
are included in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
Common Core of Data (CCD).
An LEA not included in the CCD must provide other data, such as the
adjusted poverty data that its State used to make its Title I
allocations, to demonstrate its eligibility.
2. (a) The Department does not have available to it suitable data
with which to define a ``high percentage'' of teachers not teaching in
the academic subjects or grade levels the teachers were trained to
teach. Therefore, to be eligible to receive an award, LEAs unable to
meet the definition immediately below for ``high percentage of teachers
with emergency, provisional, or temporary certification or licensing''
will need to demonstrate to the Department's satisfaction that they
have a high percentage of teachers not teaching in the academic
subjects or grade levels the teachers were trained to teach. The
Department will review this aspect of the applications on a case-by-
case basis.
2. (b) The best data available to the Department on the percentage
of teachers with emergency, provisional, or temporary certification or
licensing comes from the reports on the quality of teacher preparation
that States provided to the Department in October 2001 under section
207 of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Specifically, States provided
the percentage of teachers in their LEAs teaching on waivers, both on a
statewide basis and in high-poverty LEAs. Based on data from these
reports, the national average of teachers on waivers in high-poverty
LEAs is 11 percent. The Secretary has determined that, for purposes of
the definition of high-need LEA in section 2102, an LEA with at least
11 percent of its teachers teaching with emergency, provisional, or
temporary certification or licensing, i.e., without an initial or more
advanced State (or, where applicable, LEA) teaching certification or
license, has a ``high percentage'' of these teachers and so meets the
statutory definition.
``High-need SEA'' means an SEA of a State in which at least one LEA
is a high-need LEA.
Note: While the ESEA requires the Department to give priority to
applications from a partnership or consortium that includes a
``high-need LEA'' or ``high-need SEA,'' the ESEA does not define the
term ``high-need SEA.'' Our definition of this term enables all SEAs
to be considered high-need SEAs. However, a few States provided in
their October 2001 reports to the Department under section 207 of
the HEA on the quality of teacher preparation that they had no
individuals teaching on waivers. To be a high-need SEA, the SEA in
these States would have to demonstrate that at least one LEA in the
State (1) meets one of the poverty criteria in paragraph 1(b) of the
definition of high-need LEA, and (2) has a high percentage of
teachers not teaching in the academic subjects or grade levels the
teachers were trained to teach (paragraph 2(a) of that definition.)
``High-need school'' means a school that--
1. Is located in an area in which the percentage of students from
families with incomes below the poverty line is 30 percent or more; or
2. Is--
(a) Located in an area with a high percentage of teachers who are
teaching an academic subject or a grade level for which they are not
highly qualified. (See ESEA section 9101(23) for the definition of
``highly qualified''.)
(b) Within the top quartile of elementary schools and secondary
schools statewide, as ranked by the number of unfilled, available
teacher positions at the schools;
(c) Located in an area in which there is a high teacher turnover
rate; or
(d) Located in an area in which there is a high percentage of
teachers who are not certified or licensed.
Note: Program grantees are to define the elements of this
statutory definition of ``high-need school'' in ways that reflect,
as much as possible, the meanings of related elements in the
definition of ``high-need LEA.''
Final Project Year Activities. A recipient of a multiyear grant may
use program funds to recruit several cohorts of eligible participants
and have them hired as teachers in high-need schools of participating
LEAs. However, in order to ensure that grantees (and the LEAs with
which they partner) provide to all teachers recruited and hired through
this program at least one year of intensive follow-up support in order
adequately to train (and help to retain) these individuals as high-
quality teachers, program funds may not be used to hire individuals as
teachers after the end of the second to last project period. Therefore,
a grantee that receives a five-year award (the maximum project period),
for example, may not use program funds to recruit and hire teachers
after the end of the 2005-06 school year.
Evaluation and Accountability. ESEA section 2314 requires grantees
to submit to the Department and to the Congress interim and final
reports at the end of the third and fifth years of the grant period,
respectively. Subparagraph (b) of this section provides that these
reports must contain the results of the grantee's interim and final
evaluation, which must describe the extent to which high-need LEAs that
received funds through the grant have met their goals relating to
teacher recruitment and retention as described in the project
application.
However, while each funded project must promote the recruitment and
retention of new teachers in specific identified LEAs, because eligible
grant recipients are not limited to LEAs it is possible that one or
more funded projects will not provide funding to participating LEAs. In
order that all project evaluations provide relevant information on the
extent to which the project is meeting these LEA goals, the Department
has determined that the interim and final evaluations must describe the
extent to which LEAs that receive program funds or otherwise
participate in funded projects have met their teacher recruitment and
retention goals.
Limitation On Indirect Costs. The success of the Transition to
Teaching Program will depend upon how well grantees and the high-need
LEAs with whom they work recruit, hire, train, and retain highly
qualified individuals from other professions and backgrounds to become
teachers. If the program is to achieve its purpose, we need to ensure
that the $35 million FY 2002 appropriation is used as effectively as
possible. To do so, it is necessary to place a reasonable limitation on
the amount of program funds that grant recipients may use to reimburse
themselves for the ``indirect costs'' of program activities. Therefore,
the Secretary has decided to establish a reasonable limit of eight
percent on the indirect cost rate that all program recipients may
charge to funds provided under this program.
For reasons we have offered in a limited number of other
competitive grant programs that focus on improving teacher quality
academically, we believe that a similar limitation on a recipient's
indirect costs is necessary here to ensure that program funds are used
to
[[Page 41224]]
secure the school leaders that Congress had intended. See, e.g., the
analyses of (1) 34 CFR section 611.61, as proposed, that govern the
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants program, authorized by Title II,
Part A of the Higher Education Act (65 FR 6936, 6940 (February 11,
2000), and (2) requirements for the FY 2001 grants competition under
the Transition to Teaching program authorized in the FY 2001 Department
of Education Appropriations Act, Public Law 106-554 (66 FR 19673,
19676-77).
FOR APPLICATIONS CONTACT: Education Publications Center (ED Pubs),
P.O. Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794-1398. Telephone (toll free): 1-877-433-
7827. FAX: (301) 470-1244. If you use a telecommunications device for
the deaf (TDD) you may call (toll free): 1-877-576-7734.
You may also contact ED Pubs at its Web site: http://www.ed.gov/about/ordering.jsp.
Or you may contact ED Pubs at its e-mail address:
[email protected].
If you request an application from ED Pubs, be sure to identify
this competition as follows: CFDA number 84.350A.
A copy of the application package also may be obtained
electronically at the following Web site: http://www.ed.gov/GrantApps/.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Frances Yvonne Hicks, U.S.
Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education,
400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Room 3C153, Washington, DC 20202-6140.
Telephone: 202 260-0964. Inquiries may also be sent by e-mail to:
[email protected] or by FAX to: (202) 205-5630.
If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD), you may
call The Federal Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339.
Individuals with disabilities may obtain this document in an
alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, or computer
diskette) on request to the program contact person listed under FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
Individuals with disabilities may obtain a copy of the application
package in an alternative format by contacting ED PUBS. However, the
Department is not able to reproduce in an alternative format the
standard forms included in the application package.
Electronic Access to This Document
You may view this document, as well as all other Department of
Education documents published in the Federal Register, in text or Adobe
Portable Document Format (PDF) on the Internet at the following site:
www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister.
To use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available
free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S.
Government Printing Office (GPO, toll free, at 1-888-293-6498; or in
the Washington, DC area at (202) 512-1530.
Note: The official version of this document is the document
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the
official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal
Regulations is available on GPO access at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html.
Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 6683.
Dated: June 12, 2002.
Susan B. Neuman,
Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.
[FR Doc. 02-15295 Filed 6-14-02; 8:45 am]
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