[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 74 (Monday, April 18, 2016)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 22550-22555]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-08726]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

34 CFR Chapter II

[Docket ID ED-2016-OESE-0004; CFDA Number: 84.368A.]


Proposed Priorities--Enhanced Assessment Instruments

AGENCY: Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Department of 
Education.

ACTION: Proposed priorities.

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SUMMARY: The Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education 
proposes priorities under the Enhanced Assessment Instruments Grant 
program, also called the Enhanced Assessment Grants (EAG) program. The 
Assistant Secretary may use one or more of these priorities for 
competitions using funds from fiscal year (FY) 2016 and later years. 
Depending on the availability of funds and the use of other priorities 
under the EAG authority, the Assistant Secretary may also choose not to 
use one or more of these priorities for competitions using funds from 
FY 2016 and later years. These proposed priorities are designed to 
support projects to improve States' assessment systems.

DATES: We must receive your comments on or before May 18, 2016.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal 
or via postal mail, commercial delivery, or hand delivery. We will not 
accept comments submitted by fax or by email or those submitted after 
the comment period. To ensure that we do not receive duplicate copies, 
please submit your comments only once. In addition, please include the 
Docket ID and the term ``Enhanced Assessment Grants--Comments'' at the 
top of your comments.
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to www.regulations.gov to 
submit your comments electronically. Information on using 
Regulations.gov, including instructions for accessing agency documents, 
submitting comments, and viewing the docket, is available on the site 
under the ``Help'' tab.
     Postal Mail, Commercial Delivery, or Hand Delivery: If you 
mail or deliver your comments about these proposed priorities, address 
them to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Attention: 
Enhanced Assessment Grants--Comments, U.S. Department of Education, 400 
Maryland Avenue SW., Room 3e124, Washington, DC 20202-6132.

    Privacy Note: The Department of Education's (Department's) 
policy is to make all comments received from members of the public 
available for public viewing in their entirety on the Federal 
eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov. Therefore, commenters 
should be careful to include in their comments only information that 
they wish to make publicly available.


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Donald Peasley. Telephone: (202) 453-
7982 or by email: [email protected].
    If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) or a text 
telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay Service (FRS), toll free, at 1-
800-877-8339.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Invitation to Comment: We invite you to submit comments regarding 
this notice. To ensure that your comments have maximum effect in 
developing the notice of final priorities, we urge you to identify 
clearly the specific proposed priority that each comment addresses.
    We invite you to assist us in complying with the specific 
requirements of Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 and their overall 
requirement of reducing regulatory burden that might result from these 
proposed priorities. Please let us know of any further ways we could 
reduce potential costs or increase potential benefits while preserving 
the effective and efficient administration of the program.
    During and after the comment period, you may inspect all public 
comments about these proposed priorities by accessing regulations.gov. 
You may also inspect the comments in room 3e124, 400 Maryland Avenue 
SW., Washington, DC, between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., 
Washington, DC time, Monday through Friday of each week except Federal 
holidays.
    Assistance to Individuals with Disabilities in Reviewing the 
Rulemaking Record: On request we will

[[Page 22551]]

provide an appropriate accommodation or auxiliary aid to an individual 
with a disability who needs assistance to review the comments or other 
documents in the public rulemaking record for this notice. If you want 
to schedule an appointment for this type of accommodation or auxiliary 
aid, please contact the person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 
CONTACT.
    Purpose of Program: The purpose of the EAG program is to enhance 
the quality of assessment instruments and systems used by States for 
measuring the academic achievement of elementary and secondary school 
students.
    Program Authority: Section 6112 of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind 
Act of 2001 (NCLB), and section 1203(b)(1) of the ESEA, as amended by 
the Every Student Succeeds Act (Pub. L. 114-95) (ESSA).
    Proposed Priorities:
    This notice contains three proposed priorities.
    Background:
    Section 6112 of the ESEA, as amended by the NCLB, and section 
1203(b)(1) of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, authorize the 
Department to make competitive grant awards to State educational 
agencies (SEAs) and consortia of SEAs to help them enhance the quality 
of their assessment instruments and assessment systems.\1\ Under these 
provisions, State grantees must meet at least one of the program's 
statutory priorities, including collaborating with organizations to 
improve the quality, validity, reliability, and efficiency of academic 
assessments; measuring student academic achievement using multiple 
measures from multiple sources; measuring student growth on State 
assessments; and evaluating student academic achievement through the 
development of comprehensive academic assessment instruments and 
methods.
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    \1\ The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (Pub. L. 114-113) 
appropriated funds for the EAG program under section 6112 of the 
ESEA, as amended by the NCLB. As such, the upcoming EAG competition 
will be conducted under that authority. The Department is also 
establishing these priorities under the authority in section 
1203(b)(1) of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, which, if funded, 
would replace the EAG program under section 6112. These priorities 
may also be used in any competition conducted after FY 2016 under 
that authority.
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    The grants awarded under this competitive grant award program in 
section 6112 will also lay the groundwork for some new opportunities in 
the recently reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 
1965, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act. For example, the 
reauthorization of ESEA, will allow up to seven States or consortia of 
States to receive an initial demonstration authority to establish an 
innovative assessment and accountability system for a new approach to 
assessment for a trial period of up to five years. This can provide 
SEAs with an opportunity to demonstrate what is possible when 
assessment systems are redesigned with student learning at the center. 
The EAG program provides SEAs with support to develop innovative 
assessment tools and approaches which have the potential to be used by 
all States, including those approved under the innovative assessment 
and accountability demonstration authority, and be more widely adopted 
at scale. In addition, the EAG program provides SEAs with support in 
developing innovative summative assessment tools and approaches that 
can be used within the broader context of the multiple measures of 
student achievement and school accountability of the new ESSA and the 
President's Testing Action Plan.
    Through this notice, the Department proposes three additional 
priorities for the EAG program that are designed to support States in 
continuously improving their assessment systems to measure college- and 
career-readiness. We believe that an essential part of educating 
students involves assessing students' progress toward meeting the high 
standards they need to be ready for college and the workplace. 
Assessments provide necessary information for States, districts, 
educators, families, the public, and students themselves to measure 
progress and improve outcomes for all learners. As such, we recognize 
the importance of continuously improving and innovating to ensure 
assessments are fair, of high quality and not duplicative, can be 
completed in the minimum necessary time while validly and reliably 
measuring a student's knowledge and skills, and reflect the expectation 
that students will be prepared for success in college and careers.
    Proposed Priority 1--Developing Innovative Assessment Item Types 
and Design Approaches.
    Background: The President's Testing Action Plan highlighted the 
need to reduce the time spent on unnecessary, duplicative, or low-
quality testing and improve assessment efficiency and quality to 
provide educators and parents with more timely and actionable data on 
students' progress. SEAs and LEAs need to continue developing new 
methods for collecting evidence about what students know and are able 
to do as it relates to State learning standards, including by creating 
innovative item types and design approaches, for example, by developing 
modular assessments that are given throughout the school year instead 
of a single summative assessment given at the end of the school year.
    Although traditional assessment items such as multiple-choice 
questions have advantages, innovative item types such as performance 
tasks, simulations, and interactive, multi-step, technology-rich items 
that support competency-based assessments or portfolio assessments 
which demonstrate applied skills, have the potential to provide a more 
comprehensive view of a student's knowledge and mastery of standards. 
Examples include: Items that provide multi-step mathematics problems 
where students demonstrate their approaches to solving each step; items 
that permit graphs or other visual response types; and simulated game 
environments where students interact with stimuli and interaction 
information is collected.
    As States implement more rigorous standards, it is important that 
assessment strategies are aligned with the higher-level cognitive 
skills students are expected to master.\2\ For example, performance 
tasks and simulations provide an opportunity for students to apply 
their understanding and demonstrate their abilities in real-world 
scenarios. Rather than simply requiring a student to select a response 
from a list of options, competency-based assessments can allow students 
to interact with material and concepts to formulate responses. 
Students' responses to, and performance on, such innovative item types 
provide insight into their higher-level thinking and problem-solving 
skills and allow educators to better understand students' mastery of 
content and concepts.\3\
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    \2\ Darling-Hammond, Linda, et al. (2013). Criteria for High-
Quality Assessment (SCOPE, CRESST, LSRI Policy Brief). https://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/criteria-higher-quality-assessment_1.pdf.
    \3\ Gorin, Joanna S. (2007). Test Design with Cognition in Mind.
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    We believe that good assessments should require the same kind of 
complex work that students do in an effective classroom or in the real 
world, including demonstration and application of knowledge and skills. 
Further, assessments should present information and questions that push 
students' critical thinking skills so that students gain valuable 
experience while taking them. The inclusion of new, innovative item 
types will help to ensure that taking an assessment is a worthwhile 
experience for students.

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    Modular assessment approaches also can help SEAs and LEAs support 
students and educators in a number of significant ways by breaking down 
large, summative assessment forms with many items into smaller forms 
with fewer items (e.g., testing only one mathematics or reading 
competency). This will allow students to be assessed on specific 
competencies when they are ready and capable of demonstrating 
proficiency. This can allow advanced students to move ahead rapidly 
while providing students who need extra support the flexibility and 
additional time they need to learn and succeed, as well as the 
opportunity to demonstrate competence in the areas they have mastered.
    Modules can also provide educators with more individualized, 
easily-integrated assessments which are used together to provide a 
summative analysis of each learner.
    Proposed Priority: Under this priority, SEAs must:
    (a) Develop, evaluate, and implement new, innovative item types for 
use in summative assessments in reading/language arts, mathematics, or 
science;
    (1) Development of innovative item types under paragraph (a) may 
include, for example, performance tasks; simulations; or interactive, 
multi-step, technology-rich items that can support competency-based 
assessments or portfolio projects;
    (2) Projects under this priority must be designed to develop new 
methods for collecting evidence about a student's knowledge and 
abilities and ensure the quality, validity, reliability, and fairness 
of the assessment and comparability of student data; or
    (b) Develop new approaches to transform traditional, end-of-year 
summative assessment forms with many items into a series of modular 
assessment forms, each with fewer items.
    (1) To respond to paragraph (b), applicants must develop modular 
assessment approaches which can be used to provide timely feedback to 
educators and parents as well as be combined to provide a valid, 
reliable, and fair summative assessment of individual learners.
    (c) Applicants proposing projects under either paragraph (a) or (b) 
must provide a dissemination plan such that their projects can serve as 
models and resources that can be shared with States across the Nation.
    Proposed Priority 2--Improving Assessment Scoring and Score 
Reporting.
    Background: By improving assessment scoring and score reporting, 
SEAs can enhance the testing experience for students and provide more 
timely and relevant information to parents and educators. While 
developing high-quality assessments that measure student knowledge and 
skills against States' standards is an essential part of building 
strong assessment systems, ensuring that assessment results are 
available sooner, and provide clear and actionable information is also 
critically important.
    With continued advancements in technology to support and enhance 
education in the classroom, it is also becoming possible to improve the 
testing experience for students by using technology to automatically 
score non-multiple choice assessment items. Automated scoring can 
decrease the time needed for scoring and releasing results, lower 
costs, improve score consistency, and reduce the need for training of, 
and coordination among, human scorers.\4\ Recent research has examined 
existing automated scoring systems for short and extended constructed 
responses and found these automated scoring systems to be similar to 
human scorers.\5\
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    \4\ Williamson, David M., Xiaoming Xi, and F. Jay Breyer. 
(2012). A Framework for Evaluation and Use of Automated Scoring. 
Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice. Volume 31, Issue 1, 
Pages 2-13.
    \5\ Shermis, Mark D., and Ben Hamner. (2012). Contrasting State-
of-the-Art Automated Scoring of Essays: Analysis, National Council 
on Measurement in Education. www.scoreright.org/NCME_2012_Paper3_29_12.pdf; Shermis, Mark D. (2013). Contrasting 
State-of-the-Art in the Machine Scoring of Short-Form Constructed 
Responses. Educational Assessment. www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10627197.2015.997617.
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    Building on the work done to date and developing better 
technological tools to score assessments would be advantageous to SEAs, 
LEAs, educators, and students. Automated scoring would allow SEAs to 
incorporate more non-multiple choice items, such as essays and 
constructed responses, in assessments while not adding significantly to 
the time or cost to score the tests. Assessment results could be 
returned more quickly to students and educators, who could in turn 
respond to the results data through timely implementation of additional 
teaching, supports, or interventions that would help students master 
content.\6\ The inclusion of additional non-multiple choice items can 
also enhance the testing experience for students by requiring more 
engaging and complex demonstrations of knowledge. To improve scoring, 
applicants responding to this priority could propose projects to build, 
test, or enhance automated scoring systems for use with non-multiple 
choice items in reading/language arts, mathematics, and science. For 
example, an applicant could propose to build, test, or improve a system 
for reviewing brief or extended student-constructed responses. 
Applicants could propose projects that will research, build, or test 
systems that can score assessments and provide diagnostic information 
to educators and parents.
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    \6\ For example, the Institute of Education Sciences has 
recently invested in projects that are promising examples of how 
technology can be leveraged to improve scoring. The aim of one such 
project is to develop a computerized oral reading fluency assessment 
(see https://ies.ed.gov/funding/grantsearch/details.asp?ID=1492). 
Traditional oral reading fluency assessments require one-on-one 
administration and hand-scoring, a time-consuming and resource-
intensive process that is prone to scoring errors. The assessment 
under development uses speech recognition software to record and 
score students' oral reading fluency, making processes more 
efficient and less prone to scoring errors. Another such project is 
aimed at developing a new assessment tool to measure the science and 
math skills of middle school English learners (see https://ies.ed.gov/funding/grantsearch/details.asp?ID=1475). It features 
auto-scoring to give immediate feedback to teachers and students.
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    Score reporting, when done well, provides valuable feedback to 
educators that can be used to guide instruction and supports for 
students. This feedback is most relevant when it is available soon 
after the assessment is administered and when it is actionable for 
students, parents, and educators. The Department also recognizes a need 
to improve the design and content of the reports such that they clearly 
communicate information to stakeholders.
    Efforts to improve the usefulness of score reports could include: 
Incorporating information about what students' results mean; including 
multiple levels of information (e.g., overall proficiency, mastery of 
different standards or skills); \7\ providing examples of questions 
that were likely to be answered correctly or incorrectly (and why); and 
connecting students and their families to useful resources or aids to 
address identified areas for improvement. Improving communications 
related to score reporting could include: Presenting information in 
easily comprehensible formats (e.g., graphically or numerically); 
tailoring reporting formats to different audiences or for different 
modes of dissemination; making results available in a timelier manner 
(i.e., delivered to teachers and parents as

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soon as possible after the assessments are administered).
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    \7\ Zapata-Rivera, Diego, and Rebecca Zwick. (2011). Improving 
Test Score Reporting: Perspectives from the ETS Score Reporting 
Conference. www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-11-45.pdf.
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    Proposed Priority: Under this priority, SEAs must:
    (a) Develop innovative tools that leverage technology to score 
assessments;
    (1) To respond to paragraph (a), applicants must propose projects 
to reduce the time it takes to provide test results to educators, 
parents, and students and to make it more cost-effective to include 
non-multiple choice items on assessments. These innovative tools must 
improve automated scoring of student assessments, in particular non-
multiple choice items in reading/language arts, mathematics, and 
science; or
    (b) Propose projects, in consultation with organizations 
representing parents, students, and teachers, to address needs related 
to score reporting and improve the utility of information about student 
performance included in reports of assessment results and provide 
better and more timely information to educators and parents;
    (1) To respond to paragraph (b), applicants must include one or 
more of the following in their projects:
    (i) Developing enhanced score reporting templates or digital 
mechanisms for communicating assessment results and their meaning;
    (ii) Improving the assessment literacy of educators and parents to 
improve the interpretation of test results to support teaching and 
learning in the classroom; and
    (iii) Developing mechanisms for secure transmission and individual 
use of assessment results by students and parents.
    (c) Applicants proposing projects under either paragraph (a) or (b) 
must provide a dissemination plan such that their projects can serve as 
models and resources that can be shared with States across the Nation.
    Proposed Priority 3--Inventory of State and Local Assessment 
Systems.
    Background: Recently, there has been significant discussion about 
the amount of time students spend in formal testing, including 
classroom, district, and State assessments. While the Department 
believes that assessments are important tools for measuring progress 
and improving outcomes for all students, we also recognize that too 
much testing, or unnecessary testing, takes valuable time away from 
teaching and learning in the classroom.\8\
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    \8\ As a part of the President's Testing Action Plan, The 
Department has recently released a Dear Colleague Letter to State 
Chief School Officers providing examples of existing Federal funding 
streams, and best practices, which can be utilized at the State and 
local levels to improve assessment systems and reduce unnecessary 
testing: http://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/saa/16-0002signedcsso222016ltr.pdf.
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    In response to this issue, some SEAs, local educational agencies 
(LEAs), and schools are currently in the process of reviewing 
assessments administered to students in kindergarten through grade 12 
to better understand if each assessment is of high quality, maximizes 
instructional goals, has clear purpose and utility, and is designed to 
provide information on students' progress toward achieving proficiency 
on State standards. To support such efforts, the Department made the 
development of tools to inventory State and local assessment systems an 
invitational priority in the FY 2015 EAG competition. Through this 
proposed priority, the Department would fund States that are reviewing 
and streamlining their statewide assessments and working with some or 
all of their LEAs to review and streamline local assessments, including 
eliminating redundant and unnecessary assessments.
    This priority would support the identification of promising 
practices that could be followed by other SEAs, LEAs, and schools to 
maximize the utility of their assessments to parents, educators, and 
students.
    Proposed Priority:
    (a) Under this priority, SEAs must--
    (1) Review statewide and local assessments to ensure that each test 
is of high quality, maximizes instructional goals, has a clear purpose 
and utility, and is designed to help students demonstrate mastery of 
State standards;
    (2) Determine whether assessments are serving their intended 
purpose to help schools meet their goals and to eliminate redundant and 
unnecessary testing; and
    (3) Review State and LEA activities related to test preparation to 
make sure those activities are focused on academic content and not on 
test-taking skills.
    (b) To meet the requirements in paragraph (a), SEAs must ensure 
that tests are--
    (1) Worth taking, meaning that assessments are a component of good 
instruction and require students to perform the same kind of complex 
work they do in an effective classroom and the real world;
    (2) High quality, resulting in actionable, objective information 
about students' knowledge and skills, including by assessing the full 
range of relevant State standards, eliciting complex student 
demonstrations or applications of knowledge, providing an accurate 
measure of student achievement, and producing information that can be 
used to measure student growth accurately over time;
    (3) Time-limited, in order to balance instructional time and the 
need for assessments, for example, by eliminating duplicative 
assessments and assessments that incentivize low-quality test 
preparation strategies that consume valuable classroom time;
    (4) Fair for all students and used to support equity in educational 
opportunity by ensuring that accessibility features and accommodations 
level the playing field so tests accurately reflect what all students, 
including students with disabilities and English learners, know and can 
do;
    (5) Fully transparent to students and parents, so that States and 
districts can clearly explain to parents the purpose, the source of the 
requirement (if appropriate), and the use by teachers and schools, and 
provide feedback to parents and students on student performance; and
    (6) Tied to improving student learning as tools in the broader work 
of teaching and learning.
    (c) Approaches to assessment inventories under paragraph (a) must 
include:
    (1) Review of the schedule for administration of all assessments 
required at the Federal, State, and local levels;
    (2) Review of the purpose of, and legal authority for, 
administration of all assessments required at the Federal, State, and 
local levels; and
    (3) Feedback on the assessment system from stakeholders, which 
could include information on how teachers, principals, other school 
leaders, and administrators use assessment data to inform and 
differentiate instruction, how much time teachers spend on assessment 
preparation and administration, and the assessments that 
administrators, teachers, principals, other school leaders, parents, 
and students do and do not find useful.
    (d) Projects under this priority--
    (1) Must be no longer than 12 months;
    (2) Must include a longer-term project plan, understanding that, 
beginning with FY 2017, there may be dedicated Federal funds for 
assessment audit work as authorized under section 1202 of the ESEA, as 
amended by the ESSA, and understanding that States and LEAs may use 
other Federal funds, such as the State assessment grant funds, 
authorized under section 1201 of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, 
consistent with the purposes for those funds, to implement such plans; 
and

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    (3) Are eligible to receive a maximum award of $200,000.
    Types of Priorities:
    When inviting applications for a competition using one or more 
priorities, we designate the type of each priority as absolute, 
competitive preference, or invitational through a notice in the Federal 
Register. The effect of each type of priority follows:
    Absolute priority: Under an absolute priority, we consider only 
applications that meet the priority (34 CFR 75.105(c)(3)).
    Competitive preference priority: Under a competitive preference 
priority, we give competitive preference to an application by (1) 
awarding additional points, depending on the extent to which the 
application meets the priority (34 CFR 75.105(c)(2)(i)); or (2) 
selecting an application that meets the priority over an application of 
comparable merit that does not meet the priority (34 CFR 
75.105(c)(2)(ii)).
    Invitational priority: Under an invitational priority, we are 
particularly interested in applications that meet the priority. 
However, we do not give an application that meets the priority a 
preference over other applications (34 CFR 75.105(c)(1)).
    Final Priorities:
    We will announce the final priorities in a notice in the Federal 
Register. We will determine the final priorities after considering 
responses to this notice and other information available to the 
Department. This notice does not preclude us from proposing additional 
priorities, requirements, definitions, or selection criteria, subject 
to meeting applicable rulemaking requirements.

    Note: This notice does not solicit applications. In any year in 
which we choose to use these priorities, we invite applications 
through a notice in the Federal Register.

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995

    As part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent 
burden, the Department provides the general public and Federal agencies 
with an opportunity to comment on proposed and continuing collections 
of information in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 
(PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)). This helps ensure that: the public 
understands the Department's collection instructions, respondents can 
provide the requested data in the desired format, reporting burden 
(time and financial resources) is minimized, collection instruments are 
clearly understood, and the Department can properly assess the impact 
of collection requirements on respondents.
    These proposed priorities contain information collection 
requirements that are approved by OMB under the Departmental 
application control number 1894-0006; this proposed regulation does not 
affect the currently approved data collection.

Executive Orders 12866 and 13563

Regulatory Impact Analysis

    Under Executive Order 12866, the Secretary must determine whether 
this proposed regulatory action is ``significant'' and, therefore, 
subject to the requirements of the Executive order and subject to 
review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Section 3(f) of 
Executive Order 12866 defines a ``significant regulatory action'' as an 
action likely to result in a rule that may--
    (1) Have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more, 
or adversely affect a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, 
jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local, or 
tribal governments or communities in a material way (also referred to 
as an ``economically significant'' rule);
    (2) Create serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an 
action taken or planned by another agency;
    (3) Materially alter the budgetary impacts of entitlement grants, 
user fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients 
thereof; or
    (4) Raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal 
mandates, the President's priorities, or the principles stated in the 
Executive order.
    This proposed regulatory action is not a significant regulatory 
action subject to review by OMB under section 3(f) of Executive Order 
12866.
    We have also reviewed this proposed regulatory action under 
Executive Order 13563, which supplements and explicitly reaffirms the 
principles, structures, and definitions governing regulatory review 
established in Executive Order 12866. To the extent permitted by law, 
Executive Order 13563 requires that an agency--
    (1) Propose or adopt regulations only upon a reasoned determination 
that their benefits justify their costs (recognizing that some benefits 
and costs are difficult to quantify);
    (2) Tailor its regulations to impose the least burden on society, 
consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives and taking into 
account--among other things and to the extent practicable--the costs of 
cumulative regulations;
    (3) In choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, select 
those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential 
economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other 
advantages; distributive impacts; and equity);
    (4) To the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather 
than the behavior or manner of compliance a regulated entity must 
adopt; and
    (5) Identify and assess available alternatives to direct 
regulation, including economic incentives--such as user fees or 
marketable permits--to encourage the desired behavior, or provide 
information that enables the public to make choices.
    Executive Order 13563 also requires an agency ``to use the best 
available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future 
benefits and costs as accurately as possible.'' The Office of 
Information and Regulatory Affairs of OMB has emphasized that these 
techniques may include ``identifying changing future compliance costs 
that might result from technological innovation or anticipated 
behavioral changes.''
    We are issuing these proposed priorities only on a reasoned 
determination that their benefits would justify their costs. In 
choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, we selected those 
approaches that would maximize net benefits. Based on the analysis that 
follows, the Department believes that this regulatory action is 
consistent with the principles in Executive Order 13563.
    We also have determined that this regulatory action would not 
unduly interfere with State, local, and tribal governments in the 
exercise of their governmental functions.
    In accordance with both Executive orders, the Department has 
assessed the potential costs and benefits, both quantitative and 
qualitative, of this regulatory action. The potential costs are those 
resulting from statutory requirements and those we have determined as 
necessary for administering the Department's programs and activities.
    The proposed priorities included in this notice would benefit 
students, parents, educators, administrators, and other stakeholders by 
improving the quality of State assessment instruments and systems. The 
proposed priority for an inventory of State and local assessment 
systems would encourage States to ensure that assessments are of high 
quality, maximize instructional goals, and have clear purpose and 
utility. Further, it would encourage States to eliminate unnecessary or 
redundant tests. The proposed priority for improving assessment scoring 
and score reporting would allow for States to score non-multiple choice 
assessment items more quickly and at a lower cost

[[Page 22555]]

and ensure that assessments provide timely, actionable feedback to 
students, parents, and educators. The proposed priority for developing 
innovative assessment item types and design approaches, including the 
development of modular assessments, would yield new, more authentic 
methods for collecting evidence about what students know and are able 
to do and provide educators with more individualized, easily integrated 
assessments that can support competency-based learning and other forms 
of personalized instruction.
    Intergovernmental Review: This program is subject to Executive 
Order 12372 and the regulations in 34 CFR part 79. One of the 
objectives of the Executive order is to foster an intergovernmental 
partnership and a strengthened federalism. The Executive order relies 
on processes developed by State and local governments for coordination 
and review of proposed Federal financial assistance.
    This document provides early notification of our specific plans and 
actions for this program.
    Accessible Format: Individuals with disabilities can obtain this 
document in an accessible format (e.g., braille, large print, 
audiotape, or compact disc) on request to the program contact person 
listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
    Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this 
document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free 
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    Dated: April 12, 2016.
Ann Whalen,
Senior Advisor to the Secretary Delegated the Duties of Assistant 
Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.
[FR Doc. 2016-08726 Filed 4-15-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4000-01-P