[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 9 (Thursday, January 13, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2146-2148]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-00627]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
[Docket ID ED-2022-IES-1]
Request for Information on Effective Interventions To Improve
Middle School Science Achievement and Mathematics Achievement in Grades
3 Through 5 for Students With Disabilities
AGENCY: Institute of Education Sciences, Department of Education.
ACTION: Request for information.
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SUMMARY: The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional
Assistance (NCEE) at the U.S. Department of Education's (Department)
Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is charged by Congress to
identify and encourage the use of evidence-based practices in
education. Through this request for information (RFI), NCEE seeks
public input about the characteristics of middle school science and
upper elementary mathematics interventions as well as information on
publicly available research describing their efficacy. Feedback from
developers of such interventions would be of particular value to the
Department.
DATES: We must receive your comments by February 14, 2022.
ADDRESSES: Submit your response to this RFI through the Federal
eRulemaking Portal. We will not accept submissions by postal mail,
commercial mail, hand delivery, fax, or email. To ensure that we do not
receive duplicate copies, please submit your comments only once. In
addition, please include the Docket ID 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
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viewing the docket, is available on the site under the ``FAQ'' tab.
Privacy Note: The Department's policy for comments received from
members of the public is to make these submissions 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. We encourage, but do not require, that each respondent
include his or her name, title, institution or affiliation, and the
name, title, mailing and email addresses, and telephone number of a
contact person for his or her institution or affiliation, if any.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Matthew Soldner, Commissioner,
National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance &
Agency Evaluation Officer, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S.
Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 4160, Potomac
Center Plaza, Washington, DC 20202-7240. Telephone: (202) 245-8385.
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:
Background:
As evidenced by recent results from the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP), too many of the Nation's students struggle
with building foundational skills in science (see https://go.usa.gov/xehQC) and math (see https://go.usa.gov/xehQY). The problem is
particularly acute among student groups that education systems have
historically underserved.
In NAEP's 2019 assessment of twelfth graders' science proficiency,
69 percent of Black students, 56 percent of Hispanic students, 58
percent of Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander students, and 51
percent of American Indian/Alaska Native students were identified as
``Below NAEP Basic.'' On the same assessment, 75 percent of twelfth
grade students with disabilities demonstrated proficiency ``Below NAEP
Basic,'' a rate double that of their peers not identified with a
disability. These results signal a need to intervene early in students'
academic careers, with the aim of increasing the likelihood that
students are scientifically literate by the time they leave high
school.
For many students, mastery of foundational math skills is also a
significant challenge. The success of students with disabilities is of
particular concern. In 2017, 54 percent of fourth graders with
disabilities scored ``Below NAEP Basic'' in math, compared to only 15
percent of students without disabilities. Students entering fourth
grade with poor whole number knowledge are more likely to struggle in
later grades than their peers with a better
understanding,1 2 and it is in fourth grade where curricula
increasingly focus on rational numbers and fractions.\3\ Not developing
proficiency in these domains has negative and long-term implications
for students. In addition to being critical to life skills including
personal finance, cooking, and healthcare, this knowledge is critical
to later mathematical learning, including algebra.
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\1\ Barbieri, C.A., Rodrigues, J., Dyson, N., & Jordan, N.C.
(2020). Improving fraction understanding in sixth graders with
mathematics difficulties: Effects of a number line approach combined
with cognitive learning strategies. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 112(3), 628.
\2\ Namkung, J.M., Fuchs, L.S., & Koziol, N. (2018). Does
initial learning about the meaning of fractions present similar
challenges for students with and without adequate whole-number
skill? Learning and Individual Differences, 61, 161-167.
doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2017.11.018
\3\ Siegler, R.S., Duncan, G.J., Davis-Kean, P.E., Duckworth,
K., Claessens, A., Engel, M., Susperreguy, M.I., & Chen, M. (2012).
Early predictors of high school mathematics achievement.
Psychological Science, 23, 691-697. doi:10.1177/0956797612440101
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As part of its continuing effort to respond to disruptions caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic, IES plans to promote the advancement and
testing of programs and products (interventions) that can improve
students' proficiency in science and mathematics. We are particularly
interested in (1) interventions that can improve middle grades
students' science achievement, particularly among students in the
lowest quartile of proficiency regardless of disability status; and (2)
digital interventions that can improve the math proficiency of third to
fifth grade students with or at risk of developing disabilities, with
an emphasis on the domains of whole numbers, rational numbers, and
fractions. Through this RFI, IES is seeking information from developers
and program providers about relevant interventions. This includes
interventions that developers and program providers believe are already
wholly responsive to the needs identified above as well as those that
could be responsive to these needs if modified slightly.
When responding to this RFI, developers or program providers
intending to serve students ``at risk'' of developing a disability
should clearly identify the disability or disability categories that
proposed beneficiaries are at risk of developing and specific factors
that place them at heightened risk. The determination may include, for
example, factors used for moving children and youth to higher tiers in
a Response-to-Intervention model. Factors based solely on general
population characteristics, such as labeling a student ``at risk'' for
disabilities because they are from low-income families or are English
language learners, are not sufficient for this purpose.
This is a request for information only. This RFI is not a request
for proposals (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP or a notice inviting
applications. This RFI does not commit the Department to contract for
any supply or service whatsoever. Further, we are not seeking proposals
and will not accept unsolicited proposals. The Department will not pay
for any information or administrative costs that you may incur in
responding to this RFI. The documents and information submitted in
response to this RFI will not be returned.
We will review every comment, and, as described above, electronic
comments in response to this RFI will be publicly available on the
Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov. Please note that IES
will not directly respond to comments.
Solicitation of Comments
We invite developers or program providers with interventions
relevant to improved achievement in (1) middle school science, or (2)
upper elementary math with an emphasis on students with or at risk of
developing a disability to share the following in their comments:
(1) The name of their intervention;
(2) The curricular focus of their intervention (i.e., middle school
science or upper elementary math);
(3) A brief description of the intervention, potentially including
(a) its major components and pedagogical features, (b) its delivery
modality (e.g., face-to-face; via an online platform accessed through a
browser or mobile app), (c) its intended duration and intensity (e.g.,
60 minutes, three times a week, for six weeks), and (d) the extent to
which information on student progress is available for educators and
family members/caretakers;
(4) The extent to which the intervention, as it is currently
available, focuses on improving the proficiency of diverse groups of
students, particularly
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(a) low-performing students and (b) students with or at risk of
developing a disability;
(5) The extent to which the intervention is accessible to students
with disabilities;
(6) If available, a link or links to publicly available information
about the outcomes associated with the intervention's use, including
third-party evaluations; and
(7) If available, a link or links to web pages that provide
additional relevant detail about the intervention, such as information
about its cost or its developers.
The Institute is committed to improving the public's access to, and
the discoverability of, research on the efficacy of education
interventions. In service of that goal, we invite developers who have
commissioned studies of their interventions' efficacy and who hold
copyright to those studies, or their authorized representatives, to
consider depositing eligible content into ERIC: the Institute of
Education Sciences' bibliographic and full-text database of education
research (https://eric.ed.gov/). More information about submitting
content to ERIC, including our selection policy and how to access the
online submission portal, can be found at https://eric.ed.gov/submit/.
Accessible Format: On request to the program contact person listed
under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, individuals with disabilities
can obtain this document in an accessible format. The Department will
provide the requestor with an accessible format that may include Rich
Text Format (RTF) or text format (txt), a thumb drive, an MP3 file,
braille, large print, audiotape, or compact disc, or other accessible
format.
Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this
document is the document published in the Federal Register. You may
access the official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of
Federal Regulations at www.govinfo.gov. At this site you can view this
document, as well as all other documents of this Department published
in the Federal Register, in text or Portable Document Format (PDF). To
use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at
the site.
You may also access documents of the Department published in the
Federal Register by using the article search feature at
www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search
feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published
by the Department.
Mark Schneider,
Director, Institute of Education Sciences.
[FR Doc. 2022-00627 Filed 1-12-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P