Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Transition to Teaching Evaluation

AGENCY:

Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), Department of Education (ED).

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. chapter 3501 et seq.), ED is proposing an extension of an existing information collection.

DATES:

Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before July 6, 2015.

ADDRESSES:

Comments submitted in response to this notice should be submitted electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov by selecting Docket ID number ED-2015-ICCD-0033 or via postal mail, commercial delivery, or hand delivery. If the regulations.gov site is not available to the public for any reason, ED will temporarily accept comments at ICDocketMgr@ed.gov. Please note that comments submitted by fax or email and those submitted after the comment period will not be accepted; ED will only accept comments during the comment period in this mailbox when the regulations.gov site is not available. Written requests for information or comments submitted by postal mail or delivery should be addressed to the Director of the Information Collection Clearance Division, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW., LBJ, Mailstop L-OM-2-2E319, Room 2E117, Washington, DC 20202.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

For specific questions related to collection activities, please contact Beatriz Ceja, 202-205-5009.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

The Department of Education (ED), in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)), provides the general public and Federal agencies with an opportunity to comment on proposed, revised, and continuing collections of information. This helps the Department assess the impact of its information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. It also helps the public understand the Department's information collection requirements and provide the requested data in the desired format. ED is soliciting comments on the proposed information collection request (ICR) that is described below. The Department of Education is especially interested in public comment addressing the following issues: (1) Is this collection necessary to the proper functions of the Department; (2) will this information be processed and used in a timely manner; (3) is the estimate of burden accurate; (4) how might the Department enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (5) how might the Department minimize the burden of this collection on the respondents, including through the use of information technology. Please note that written comments received in response to this notice will be considered public records.

Title of Collection: Transition to Teaching Evaluation.

OMB Control Number: 1855-0018.

Type of Review: An extension of an existing information collection.

Respondents/Affected Public: State, Local and Tribal Governments.

Total Estimated Number of Annual Responses: 42.

Total Estimated Number of Annual Burden Hours: 42.

Abstract: This is a request for approval to collect information from Transition to Teaching (TTT) grantees that will be used to describe the extent to which local education agencies that received TTT grant funds have met the goals relating to teacher recruitment and retention described in their application. TTT grantees are funded for a period of five years. Currently, grantees are required by statute to submit an interim project evaluation to the Department of Education (ED) at the end of the third project year and a final project evaluation at the project's end. In turn, the TTT program is required to prepare and submit to the Secretary and to Congress interim and final program evaluations containing the results of these grantee project evaluation reports. An analysis of these reports has provided some data on grantee activities, prior to the usage of the TTT survey, missing or incomplete data made it difficult to aggregate data across grantees in order to accurately describe to Congress the extent of program implementation. This data collection allows ED to gather data on a common set of indicators across grantees in order to describe and improve program implementation with the end goal of improving program performance.