[Federal Register: January 4, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 3)]
[Notices]
[Page 571-574]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr04ja02-55]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education; Notice of Request
for Public Comment on the Department of Education's Initial Plans for
Implementing a Consolidated State Application and a Consolidated Annual
Report Under the Reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act
SUMMARY: We invite the public to submit comments on the Department's
initial plans under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as
amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, for providing formula
program grant funding to States on the basis of consolidated
applications. Public comments will help the Department develop proposed
criteria for submission of consolidated State applications and identify
the information to be collected in the annual performance report that
is required of each State. The Department expects to publish in
February, for public review and comment, a separate notice in the
Federal Register proposing criteria and procedures to govern the
consolidated State application and annual State report.
DATES: Please send your comments on or before January 14, 2002.
ADDRESSES: Please address your comments to Marcia Kingman, Office of
Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education, using
one of the following methods:
1. Internet. We encourage you to send your comments through the
Internet to the following address: marcia.kingman@ed.gov. You should
use the term ``ESEA Consolidated Plan'' in the subject line of your
electronic message.
2. Fax Machine. You also may submit your comments by fax machine at
(202) 205-5870.
3. Surface Mail. Alternatively, you may submit your comments via
surface mail addressed to: Marcia Kingman, Office of Elementary and
Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue,
SW, Room 3E213, Washington, DC 20202.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Marcia Kingman, Office of Elementary
and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland
Avenue, SW, Room 3E213, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 260-
2199.
Individuals with disabilities may obtain this document in an
alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, or computer
diskette) on request to the contact person for information identified
in the preceding paragraph.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In mid-December of 2001, the Congress gave
final approval to H.R. 1, the No Child Left Behind Act. This bill,
which now awaits the President's signature, will substantially revise
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), offering all
of America's school children the opportunity and means to achieve
academic success. In particular, the bill embodies the four key
measures of the President's education reform plan: (1) Stronger
accountability for results, (2) expanded flexibility and local control,
(3) expanded options for parents, and (4) an emphasis on teaching
methods that have been proven to work, particularly in reading
instruction.
These measures are designed to produce fundamental reforms in
classrooms throughout America. They will provide officials and
administrators 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 new law will hold
school officials accountable--to parents, students, and the public--for
achieving results. These and other major changes to the ESEA through
the No Child Left Behind Act will redefine the federal role in K-12
education to better focus on improving the academic performance of all
American students. The full text of this pending law, and the House-
Senate conference report summary of the final bill, may be found on the
Internet at: http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/107th/education/nclb/
nclb.htm.
[[Page 572]]
One key way that the Department provides flexibility for States and
school districts to design their own approaches for improving the
academic performance of all students is by encouraging the careful
development and use of consolidated plans or applications. Use of
consolidated plans or applications also will help accomplish the
President's goal of reducing unnecessary and burdensome paperwork and
focus planning and reporting on student achievement.
Sections 9301 and 9302 of the new law, like the predecessor
provisions in sections 14301 and 14302 of the ESEA, as amended in 1994
by the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA), will offer States the
option of seeking funding under most ESEA formula grant programs
through these consolidated plans or applications instead of through
individual program plans or applications that the law otherwise would
require. As expressed in the forthcoming law, a consolidated plan or
application would be designed ``to improve teaching and learning by
encouraging greater cross-program coordination, planning, and service
delivery, to provide greater flexibility to State and local
authorities, and to enhance integration of [the ESEA] programs * * *
with State and local programs'' (section 9301). States would submit not
the information required for individual ESEA program plans or
applications, but rather ``only descriptions, information, assurances,
* * * and other materials that are absolutely necessary for the
consideration of the consolidated State plan or consolidated State
application'' (section 9302(b)(3)). Hence, the Department will be able
to provide funding to States under many ESEA formula grant programs on
the basis of this single plan or application.
In addition, section 9305 of the ESEA will extend similar
flexibility to local educational agencies (LEAs), continuing the
authority for LEAs to receive program funding through submission of
consolidated local plans or applications under individual programs that
the statute would otherwise require. It also clarifies existing law to
ensure that State educational agencies (SEAs) do not require local
education agencies (LEAs) to submit individual program plans or
applications if they wish to submit a consolidated application.
Programs that may be included in a consolidated plan or
application. Sections 9101(13) and 9302(a)(1) of the ESEA, as amended
by the forthcoming No Child Left Behind Act, identify the programs that
a State would be able to include in a consolidated plan or application.
These programs are each of those authorized by--
Title I, Part A: Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local
Educational Agencies.
Title I, Part B, subpart 3: William J. Goodling Even Start Family
Literacy Programs.
Title I, Part C: Education of Migrant Children.
Title I, Part D: Prevention and Intervention Programs for Children
and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk.
Title I, Part F: Comprehensive School Reform.
Title II, Part A: Teacher and Principal Training and Recruiting
Fund.
Title II, Part D: Enhancing Education Through Technology.
Title III, Part A: English Language Acquisition, Language
Enhancement and Academic Achievement.
Title IV, Part A: Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities.
Title IV, Part B: 21st Century Community Learning Centers.
Title V, Part A: Innovative Programs.
Title VI, Part B, subpart 2: Rural and Low-Income School Program.
Other programs the Secretary may designate. Each State would be
free either to submit a consolidated plan or application that includes
any or all of these programs, or to submit a separate program plan or
application for each of the programs the ESEA would otherwise require.
The Department's Experience With Consolidated State Plans
1. Criteria for consolidated State plans. After the 1994
reauthorization of the ESEA, the Department developed criteria for
consolidated State plans that sought to align consolidated planning of
the ESEA programs included in the States' plans with comprehensive
school reform efforts that States were already undertaking on their
own. Therefore, the criteria for the consolidated State plans that
States have provided to the Department since 1994 stressed a
comprehensive description of the State's--
Goals and objectives for achievement of all students,
including the content of the State's standards and assessments system
under Title I, part A of the ESEA, and performance indicators,
benchmarks, and timelines it had established for meeting these goals
and objectives;
Strategies, activities, and uses of resources under which
the ESEA programs the State included in its consolidated plan would
help to achieve State goals and objectives, including those related to
such key components as Title I, part A schoolwide programs,
professional development, safe and drug-free schools, and consolidated
local planning;
Process for ensuring that the consolidated State plan
would continue to be revised, as necessary, to reflect changing
circumstances and continuous improvement; and
Process for promoting and maintaining public involvement
in reviewing how well the plan was being implemented.
States also provided a limited amount of fiscal information that
the Department needed to review before distributing ESEA program
funding to ensure program accountability. All but one State now receive
ESEA State formula grant program funding on the basis of these
consolidated plans.
In the guidance it issued on preparation of these consolidated
State plans, the Department informed States that its approval of those
plans eliminated the need, for programs included in the plan, to
develop separate program planning documents that the individual program
statutes otherwise required. However, the Department also stressed that
its approval of the consolidated State plans did not relieve States of
their responsibility to adhere to all of the operational requirements
that these statutes imposed, whether or not the statutes included them
as required elements of individual program plans or applications.
2. Consolidated performance reports. In 1998, the Department
distributed an initial consolidated performance reporting instrument
that States began using to report annually on the performance of all
programs included in their consolidated plans. This reporting
instrument (and its subsequent revision) replaced the various
individual program performance reports that States had previously sent
at differing times to the Department. States report in a single
document information in a number of areas, in particular (a) student
achievement gains (principally for Title I, part A), (b) how LEAs
carried out individual programs, including participation data, and (c)
how well States and LEAs met performance measures for these programs
that the Department had established in accordance with requirements of
the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).
[[Page 573]]
The Department's Working Model for Consolidated Applications Under
the ESEA, As Amended by the No Child Left Behind Act
1. An overview. Consistent with the pending No Child Left Behind
Act, the Department is developing proposed consolidated application and
reporting procedures that States would integrate into a comprehensive
State accountability system. Information States would submit in their
consolidated applications would be integral to both overall State
accountability and to the Department's ability to meet its basic
administrative responsibilities.
We refer to the documents as ``consolidated applications'' rather
than as ``consolidated plans'' to emphasize that this information would
not constitute an educational or programmatic ``plan'' or ``set of
strategies.'' By this we mean that the Department has no intention of
reviewing (or approving) a State's plans for achieving program-by-
program goals for academic achievement of all students and most other
objectives and requirements of the individual ESEA programs. Instead
the Department will review a consolidated application that contains the
State's overall and individual programmatic goals and objectives that
relate to improved student achievement, and its descriptions of the
overall State system for measuring progress in achieving them. A State
would be responsible to its own students and parents--but not to the
Department--for putting in place effective strategies for meeting those
goals and objectives.
Hence, the criteria for consolidated State applications would be
designed to reflect a focus on the data that States will use to
demonstrate results, in particular, improved student achievement levels
of all students and narrowing of ``achievement gaps.'' In the
consolidated annual reports, States would provide data on their success
in achieving these results. Moreover, in order to reduce burden and
enable the collection of more up-to-date information, the Department
will be working to make this reporting system ``web-based'' so that
information might be supplied electronically rather than in paper form.
2. Proposed key components of the new consolidated State
application. More specifically, the consolidated State application
would address--
The State's definition of adequate yearly progress under
section 1111(b)(2) of the ESEA, as amended by the No Child Left Behind
Act, and its timeline to ensure that all students are proficient not
later that 12 school years after the end of the 2001-2002 school year
as the new law will require, as it applies to both public elementary
and secondary school students as a whole and the required subgroups:
economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial and
ethnic groups, disabled students, and limited English proficient
students.
The State's key objectives for each of the Federal
programs included in the consolidated application and the populations
those programs serve, as those objectives support increased achievement
of all students (e.g., its goals for increasing migrant-student high
school completion rates, goals for reducing school violence, and goals
for increasing the number of highly qualified teachers);
So that progress can be tracked through the State's annual
reports, (1) baseline data for the 2001-2002 school year for the
indicators on which States would provide information in their annual
reports under section 1111(h)(4), and (2) other baseline data relative
to key objectives for each of the Federal programs included in the
consolidated application and the populations those program serve, as
those objectives support increased student achievement.
The principal approaches the State would use, with federal
and non-federal funds, to achieve adequate yearly progress for all
students and the key objectives for each of the included ESEA programs
and the populations they assist;
The assessment and accountability systems the State would
use for measuring whether it is successful in meeting (1) its adequate
yearly progress goals for all students under sections 1111(b)(3) and
(b)(2), respectively, and (2) the State's key objectives for each of
the included ESEA programs; and
Key information on specific ESEA programs that the
Department needs to review in order to ensure programmatic or fiscal
integrity.
3. Other considerations.
a. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 will make significant
changes to the ESEA that are designed to give school officials,
educators, and parents the tools they need to ensure that all students
can achieve. However, this Act also will build upon school reform
strategies that were begun under the previous statute and other federal
and State initiatives. In this regard, provided that State plans are
consistent with Department requirements, States would be able to draw
upon information and data that they developed under the previous
statute.
b. To gauge the success of the Nation in implementing the new Act,
it is important that where possible States report their assessment data
using common formats and measures. Therefore, the Department intends to
work with States to determine how their data management systems may
align.
c. Only a limited amount of program-specific information would be
included in a consolidated State application. Yet, even if not
addressed in the consolidated application, all operational and program-
planning requirements of each program (as amended by the No Child Left
Behind Act) included in a consolidated application are extremely
important and need to be met. Many ESEA program statutes establish some
of these operational and planning requirements in provisions that
govern the content of individual program plans or applications. States
would need to adhere to all of those requirements (as well as to those
that appear elsewhere in the individual program statutes), and to
maintain for public inspection documentation that confirms they have
been met. (In order to help promote public dialogue on how States can
most effectively implement the federal programs included in their
consolidated applications, the Department also would encourage States
to post on their Internet sites information on how they propose to meet
key requirements of each program.)
Specific questions on which the Department seeks comment.
Consolidated State applications can provide the Department with
important information on how the State intends federal programs
included in the application to promote increased achievement of all
students. However, the principal importance of these consolidated
applications (and reports) is their ability to communicate to the
public, policy-makers, and others in each State the basis on which the
State officials responsible for implementing the new law propose to
hold themselves accountable for ensuring that no child is left behind.
It is in both of these contexts that we are interested in receiving
public comment and reaction to all aspects of this proposal. However,
in formulating your comments we ask that you pay particular attention
to the following questions:
1. Goals, objectives, and baseline data. What kinds of State goals
and objectives--in addition to the adequate yearly progress standards
set forth in Title I, part A--might States adopt for measuring the
success of programs included in the consolidated application? What
baseline data might
[[Page 574]]
States use to measure success in meeting these key goals and
objectives? How might States measure their success in implementing each
program included in the consolidated application?
2. Phase-in process. The Department will need to distribute FY 2002
funds to States this coming July. States will have insufficient time by
then to prepare high-quality consolidated applications that would
reflect all of the desired information. Consequently, the Department
would establish initial procedures and criteria under which States
choosing to submit consolidated applications will be able to receive FY
2002 funds in a timely manner. However, given the requirements of the
pending No Child Left Behind Act, and the urgency with which all of us
will be working to implement it, the Department would want all States
to have submitted complete consolidated State applications by a
specific deadline, no later than the beginning of the 2003-04 school
year. States plainly will need to be able to submit this information to
the Department in two or more phases that reflect the differing amounts
of time that will be needed to prepare the different parts of their
applications.
What might this phase-in process look like? Consistent with the
exigencies and program-specific schedules underpinning the No Child
Left Behind Act, how much time would States need to provide the
different information that would be included in the complete
consolidated State application? What information should States be
expected to provide in each phase? In addition, while the Department
would insist that each State submit all of the information to be
included in its consolidated application by the end of the 2003-2004
school year, some States may be able to submit their information
earlier than others. Should the Department have States submit their
information on different schedules that depend on when they have their
data available?
3. Individual program requirements. Without undermining the
important purposes of consolidated State applications, how can the
Department do a better job of helping to ensure State, school district,
and school adherence to the requirements of the individual programs
that those consolidated applications include?
4. Consolidated performance reporting. Consolidated performance
reporting for school years 2000-01 and 2001-02 will be conducted
through the Office of Management and Budget-approved reporting form the
Department prepared under the previous law. Are there elements of this
report that the Department should retain for reporting under the No
Child Left Behind Act? Which ones?
5. Flexibility initiatives under the new law. What implications do
the No Child Left Behind Act's flexibility initiatives have for the
consolidated State application and annual reporting effort? These
initiatives include:
Transferability of program funds, allowing any SEA to
transfer 50 percent of its State-level funds under certain programs to
State-level activities under other programs or under Title I, and LEAs
to transfer 50 percent of their funds among programs or into Title I
(Title VI, Part A, Subpart 2);
The Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), which
allows small rural LEAs to consolidate certain federal program funds
(Part B of Title VI);
The Secretary's waiver authority (Title IX, Part D), and
waiver decisions available to States under the Ed-Flex Partnership
Demonstration Act of 1999 (Ed-Flex);
The State Flexibility Program (state-flex), which allows
SEAs to use certain federal funds for any ESEA purpose, direct the use
of funds provided under Title V, Part A (formerly Title VI of the
ESEA), and enter into local performance agreements with ten LEAs in
each State (Title VI, Part A, Subpart 3, Chapter A); and
Local flexibility authority, under which up to 80
additional LEAs will receive broad authority to consolidate funds
(Title VI, Part A, Subpart 3, Chapter B).
6. Other considerations. Are there criteria and procedures for
consolidated State applications (or plans) that, consistent with the
requirements of sections 9301 and 9302 of the new Act, would better
promote accountability for increased academic achievement of all
students and other objectives of the No Child Left Behind Act? What are
they? How should they be reflected in the procedures and content for
consolidated State applications or plans that the Department
establishes?
Electronic Access to This Document
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legislation/FedRegister.
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Note: The official version of this document is the document
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the
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Regulations is available on GPO access at: http://
www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html
Dated: December 28, 2001.
Susan B. Neuman,
Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.
[FR Doc. 02-155 Filed 1-3-02; 8:45 am]
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