[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 62 (Friday, March 31, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19289-19291]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-06675]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Peer Review Opportunities With the U.S. Department of Education's
Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE); Office of
Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE); Office of English Language
Acquisition (OELA); Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE); and Office
of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS)
AGENCY: Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education; Office of
Elementary and Secondary Education; Office of English Language
Acquisition; 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 OCTAE,
OESE, OELA, OPE, and OSERS.
DATES: Requests to serve as a peer reviewer for fiscal year 2023 will
be 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 OCTAE, OESE, OELA, 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:
OCTAE: Daphnne Bonaparte, U.S. Department of Education, 400
Maryland Avenue SW, Room 10-358, Potomac Center Plaza, Washington, DC
20202-5076. Telephone: (202) 987-1561. Email: [email protected].
OESE: Andrew Brake, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland
Avenue SW, Room 3W344, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 453-6136.
Email: [email protected].
OELA: Celeste McLaughlin, U.S. Department of Education, 400
Maryland Avenue SW, Room H3214, Potomac Center Plaza, Washington, DC
20202-5076. Telephone: (202) 245-7693. 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 grant 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; 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
OCTAE, OESE, OELA, OPE, and OSERS grant competitions, and this emphasis
on increasing peer reviewer diversity is included in the Department's
Agency Equity Plan, available at www2.ed.gov/documents/equity/2022-equity-plan.pdf.
This year, OCTAE is managing one grant competition: Career-
Connected High School Initiative.
This year, OESE is managing approximately 25 grant competitions to
fund a range of projects that support, education innovation and
research; educator growth and diversity; magnet schools; charter
schools; literacy; history and civics; family engagement; community
schools; Indian education; school infrastructure; and out-of-school
time learning, among others.
OELA is managing one grant competition: Native American and Alaska
Native Children in School Program.
OPE is managing approximately 20 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 designed to increase college enrollment among students in
high-poverty schools; projects designed to
[[Page 19290]]
increase college participation among low-income parent students by
providing high-quality child care; 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, including a new Postsecondary Student Success Grants
competition under the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary
Education, a tiered evidence grant program designed to develop and
rigorously evaluate evidence-based interventions to improve
postsecondary completion outcomes.
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; Parent Training and Information; and
Technical Assistance on State Data Collection. The remaining
competitions in OSERS' Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) are
Section 21: Capacity Building in Traditionally Underserved Populations
and 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 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 the
OCTAE competition (Chart 5 of the Forecast of Funding Opportunities),
you must also send your resume to [email protected]. The subject line of the
email should read ``Prospective 2023 Peer Reviewer.''
If you have interest in serving as a reviewer specifically for OESE
competitions (Chart 2), you must also send your resume to
[email protected].
If you have interest in serving as a reviewer specifically for the
OELA competition (Chart 6), you must also send your resume to
[email protected]. The subject line of the email should read ``Prospective
2023 Peer Reviewer.''
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 2023 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: Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education
Act of 2006, as amended by the Strengthening
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Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. 115-
224); 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. 2023-06675 Filed 3-30-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P