Response to OMB Questions

1. The majority of Race to the Top grantees have unique student identifiers and the capacity to communicate with higher education data systems.  For those grantees for which these elements are not fully operational, the States have alternative mechanisms that can be used to obtain the needed information.  Also, EDFacts will be collecting this data for school year 2010-11 from all States in February 2012, so States are aware of these requirements and should be preparing to provide it. 

2. “Effective teacher” and “effective principal” are both defined in the definitions section of the APR.  Additionally, “effective or better” was used in the original application in (D)(2).  For the sake of consistency and greater transparency in reporting, we now also use this terminology in (D)(3).  “Effective or better” would encompass all ratings that are at the level of “effective” and  higher.  This would include any rating of “highly effective,” but also could potentially include additional rating categories that are above “effective,” depending on the State’s qualifying evaluation system.  We will communicate this information to grantees.

From: Brammer, Joshua J. [mailto:Joshua_J._Brammer@omb.eop.gov]
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 11:41 AM
To: Valentine, Stephanie
Cc: Kelly, Bridget; Levin, Jessie; Vessey, Rachel; Hyler, James
Subject: RE: Race to the Top APR

Hi Stephanie,

We have two additional questions:

1. We understand that States will now have to report on college entrance and first year completion in the APR.  While we agree with this strategy, we’d like to know the extent to which States have the ability/capacity to report this. If so, how many?  Wouldn’t this require having SLDS linked to postsecondary data in place?

2. We appreciate the changes made to the measures for (D)(3).  However, we think using language such as “effective or better” could be confusing and it should be clarified somewhere. Does this category include teachers identified as “highly effective”?  If an evaluation system includes various rating levels, teachers classified at which rating levels should be reported here?

Thanks,

Josh