[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 98 (Friday, May 20, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30928-30930]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-10834]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION


Peer Review Opportunities With the U.S. Department of Education's 
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), Office of 
Postsecondary Education (OPE), and Office of Special Education and 
Rehabilitative Services (OSERS)

AGENCY: Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of 
Postsecondary Education, and Office of Special Education and 
Rehabilitative Services, Department of Education.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Education (Department) announces 
opportunities for individuals to participate in its peer review process 
for competitive grant funding under the programs administered by OESE, 
OPE, and OSERS.

DATES: Requests to serve as a peer reviewer for fiscal year 2022 will 
be

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accepted on an ongoing basis, aligned with this year's grant 
competition schedule. Requests to serve as a peer reviewer should be 
submitted at least four weeks prior to the program's application 
deadline noted on the Department's website under ``Forecast of Funding 
Opportunities'' at www2.ed.gov/fund/grant/find/edlite-forecast.html. 
This notice highlights the specific needs of OESE, OPE, and OSERS.

ADDRESSES: An individual interested in serving as a peer reviewer must 
register and upload his or her resume in the Department's grants 
management system known as ``G5'' at www.g5.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 
    OESE: Richard Wilson, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland 
Avenue SW, Room 3W101, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 453-6709. 
Email: [email protected].
    OPE: Tonya Hardin, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland 
Avenue SW, Room 2C205, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 453-7694. 
Email: [email protected].
    OSERS: Kate Friday, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland 
Avenue SW, Room 5081B, Potomac Center Plaza, Washington, DC 20202-5076. 
Telephone: (202) 245-7605. Email: [email protected].
    If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and 
wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The mission of the Department is to promote 
student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by 
fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. The 
Department pursues its mission by funding programs that will improve 
access to high-quality educational opportunities and programs that 
pursue innovations in teaching and learning with a focus on underserved 
students. The Department also funds programs in other areas as 
authorized by statute. Grant funds are awarded to State educational 
agencies; local educational agencies (i.e., school districts); State, 
local, or Tribal governments; nonprofit organizations; institutions of 
higher education (IHEs), including IHEs that have experience in the 
operation of American Indian Vocational Rehabilitation Service 
programs; and other entities through a competitive process referred to 
as a grant competition.
    Each year the Department convenes panels of external education 
professionals and practitioners to serve as peer reviewers.\1\ Peer 
reviewers evaluate and score submitted applications against 
competition-specific criteria and announced priorities. Application 
scores are then used to inform the Secretary's funding decisions.
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    \1\ Please note that the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) 
uses different peer review processes and procedures than those 
described in this notice. More information on the IES peer review 
process can be found at: https://ies.ed.gov/director/sro/application_review.asp. IES also administers its research grant 
competitions on a different timeline from other offices in the 
Department.
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    Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for 
Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, directs Federal 
agencies to ``assess whether underserved communities and their members 
face systemic barriers in accessing benefits and opportunities 
available pursuant to those policies and programs.'' The Department is 
committed to increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of peer 
reviewers--an important element of the Department's efforts to 
implement this Executive order. Moreover, the Department is 
particularly interested in peer reviewers who represent diverse 
experiences and perspectives, including experiences working with 
diverse and underserved communities, and whose expertise pertains to 
OESE, OPE, and OSERS grant competitions.
    This year, OESE is managing more than 20 grant competitions to fund 
a range of projects that support, among others, education innovation 
and research; educator growth and diversity; magnet schools; charter 
schools; gifted and talented programs; arts education; family 
engagement; equity technical assistance centers; Indian education; and 
assessments.
    Similarly, OPE is conducting nearly 30 grant competitions to fund a 
wide range of projects, including projects to support improvements in 
educational quality, management, and financial stability at colleges 
and universities that enroll high numbers of underserved students; 
projects to provide high-quality support services to improve retention 
and completion rates of students who are low income or first-generation 
college students or individuals with disabilities; projects designed to 
strengthen foreign language instruction, area and international 
studies, teaching and research, professional preparation and 
development for educators, and curriculum development at the K-12, 
graduate, and postsecondary levels; and other innovative projects 
designed to improve postsecondary education.
    OSERS is managing nearly 20 grant competitions. The competitions in 
OSERS' Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) include those under 
the following programs: State Personnel Development Grants; Personnel 
Development; Technical Assistance and Dissemination; Educational 
Technology, Media, and Materials; and Parent Training and Information. 
The remaining competition in OSERS' Rehabilitation Services 
Administration (RSA) is the Disability Innovation Fund.
    The Department seeks to expand its pool of peer reviewers to ensure 
that applications are evaluated by individuals with up-to-date and 
relevant knowledge of educational interventions and practices across 
the learning continuum, from early education to college and career, in 
a variety of learning settings. Department peer reviewers are education 
professionals and practitioners who have gained subject matter 
expertise through their education and work as teachers, professors, 
principals, administrators, school counselors, researchers, evaluators, 
content developers, or vocational rehabilitation professionals or 
interpreters. Peer reviewers can be active education professionals in 
any educational level or sector, or those who are retired but stay 
informed of current educational content and issues. No prior experience 
as a peer reviewer is required.
    Peer reviewers for each competition will be selected based on 
several factors, including each reviewer's program-specific expertise, 
the number of applications to be reviewed, and the diversity and 
availability of prospective reviewers. Individuals selected to serve as 
peer reviewers are expected to participate in training; independently 
read, score, and provide written evaluative comments on assigned 
applications; and participate in facilitated panel discussions with 
other peer reviewers. Panel discussions are held via conference calls 
or in-person, as identified for the specific competition. The time 
commitment for peer reviewers is usually several hours a day over a 
period of two to four weeks. Peer reviewers receive an honorarium 
payment as monetary compensation for successfully reviewing 
applications.
    If you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer for the 
Department, you should first review the program web pages of the grant 
programs that match your area of expertise. You can access information 
on each grant program from the link provided on the Department's grants 
forecast page at www2.ed.gov/fund/grant/find/edlite-forecast.html. If 
you have documented experience that

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you believe qualifies you to serve as a peer reviewer for one or more 
specific grant programs, please register in G5, at www.g5.gov, which 
allows the Department to manage and assign potential peer reviewers to 
competitions that may draw upon their professional backgrounds and 
expertise. A toolkit that includes helpful information on how to be 
considered as a peer reviewer for programs administered by the 
Department can be found at www2.ed.gov/documents/peer-review/peer-reviewer-toolkit.pptx. Neither the submission of a resume nor 
registration in G5 guarantees you will be selected to be a peer 
reviewer.
    In addition to registering in G5, some OPE and OSERS/RSA peer 
reviews may require being registered in the System for Award Management 
(SAM). Since registration for this process can take longer than a week, 
interested individuals are encouraged to register in advance of being 
contacted by the Department. In addition to registering in G5, some 
OSERS/OSEP peer reviews require being approved to serve on the Office 
of Special Education's Standing Panel. Individuals should express their 
interest to serve as a peer reviewer for OSEP competitions directly to 
the competition manager listed in the Notice Inviting Applications at 
least four weeks prior to the application closing date.
    If you have interest in serving as a reviewer specifically for OESE 
competitions (Chart 2 of the Forecast of Funding Opportunities), you 
must also send your resume to [email protected].
    If you have interest in serving as a reviewer specifically for RSA 
competitions (Chart 4B) also send your resume to [email protected] 
and [email protected]. The subject line of the email should read 
``Prospective 2022 Peer Reviewer.'' In the body of the email, list all 
programs for which you would like to be considered to serve as a peer 
reviewer.
    Requests to serve as a peer reviewer should be submitted at least 
four weeks prior to the program's application deadline, noted on the 
forecast page, to provide program offices with sufficient time to 
review resumes and determine an individual's suitability to serve as a 
peer reviewer for a specific competition. If you are selected to serve 
as a peer reviewer, the program office will contact you.
    Accessible Format: On request to the person(s) listed under FOR 
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, individuals with disabilities can obtain 
this document and a copy of the application package 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.
    Program Authority: Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, 
as amended (20 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.), Higher Education Act of 1965, as 
amended (20 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.), Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq.), and the Rehabilitation Act of 
1973, as amended by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (29 
U.S.C. 701 et seq.).

Roberto J. Rodriguez,
Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development.
[FR Doc. 2022-10834 Filed 5-19-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P