This is a request for approval to collect information from Transition to Teaching (TTT) grantees that will be used to prepare required interim and final program evaluation reports for submission to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and Congress. TTT grantees are required by statute to submit an interim project evaluation to ED at the end of the third project year and a final project evaluation at the project’s end. The reports are to “describe the extent to which Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) that received funds through the grant have met the goals relating to teacher recruitment and retention described in the application.”1 Currently, ED uses the information submitted by grantees in the project evaluations, along with the annual project performance reports, to prepare the interim and final program evaluation reports. The project performance and evaluation reports provide data on the specific Government Performance Results Act (GPRA) program measures (see Current Reporting Requirements) and information on grantee activities related to recruitment and retention. However, without an OMB-approved data collection, ED is not able to require all grantees to respond to the same data items in a consistent manner. Grantees provide consistent data only in response to the GPRA measures. The Department has used evaluation questions to encourage grantees to provide data on their recruitment and retention strategies. However, grantees are not required to respond to these questions and the responses from those that do are inconsistent and typically not of the same depth and clarity. In addition, prior to the usage of the TTT Evaluation 1855-0018, the poor quality of some reports and missing or incomplete data in others made it difficult to aggregate data across grantees and accurately describe to the Secretary and Congress the extent of program implementation.
The extension of this data collection will allow ED to continue to gather data on a common set of indicators across grantees, that are coordinated with the ongoing content analysis of grantee performance and evaluation reports. These complementary data sets enable ED to improve the quality of the required reports to the Secretary and Congress by being able to more fully and accurately describe project implementation and how projects have recruited, selected, prepared, placed, certified, supported, and retained eligible nontraditional teaching candidates in high-need schools in high-need LEAs for at least three more years.
The TTT grant program is housed within the Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) in the U.S. Department of Education. The TTT program is authorized under Title II, Part C, Subpart 1, Chapter B of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (Pub. L. No. 107‑110). The program provides five-year grants to eligible applicants to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to recruit, select, prepare, place, certify, support, and retain mid-career professionals, including highly qualified paraprofessionals, and recent college graduates. Eligible grantees include State educational agencies (SEAs), LEAs, for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations, and institutions of higher education (IHEs) in partnership with high-need LEAs or SEAs.
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, ED funded 31 projects across the country. In FY 2007, ED funded 42 grantees, followed by 21 grantees in FY 2009, and 30 grantees in FY 2011.
The major components of the TTT program correspond to the process by which grantees identify eligible candidates, place qualified teachers in the classroom, and retain them for three years. These components reflect the overall purpose of TTT, the application content, and allowed uses of funds identified in the authorizing legislation.
Recruitment: Identifying and attracting eligible TTT participants.
Selection: Determining eligibility requirements for candidates to be enrolled in a TTT project, including requisite content knowledge, skills, and commitment to teach in high-need schools in high-need LEAs.
Preparation: Providing a route to certification that is accelerated, integrates coursework and field experience, is adapted to participants’ learning needs, and yields highly qualified teachers that are prepared to teach in high-need schools in high-need LEAs.
Placement: Identifying the needs of eligible partner LEAs and working with these LEAs to hire qualified Teachers of Record (TORs) in high-need schools.
Certification: Ensuring that teacher preparation activities fulfill the relevant legislative requirements for certification through the State-approved alternate routes in each State.
Support/Retention: Providing mentoring and other supports to TORs so that they will remain as teachers in high-need schools in high-need districts for at least three years.
ED has established one performance goal for assessing the effectiveness of the TTT program: increasing the percentage of new, highly qualified TTT teachers who teach in high-need schools in high-need LEAs for at least three years. TTT tracks progress toward achieving program results through three performance measures:
The percentage of TTT participants who become teachers of record in high-need schools in high-need LEAs. For this measure, grantees provide the number of participants and the number of TORs in high-need schools in high-need LEAs.
The percentage of TTT participants receiving certification/licensure within three years. For this measure, grantees report the number of participants who became certified within three years.
The percentage of TTT TORs who teach in high-need schools in high-need LEAs for at least three years. For this measure, grantees report the number of TORs who have been teaching in high-need schools in high-need LEAs for at least three years.
TTT grantees report annually on these performance measures as well as their own specific project objectives and measures using ED’s standard performance reporting form (524B). In addition, at the interim and after the final year of the project, grantees provide a project evaluation.
The data collection will continue to focus on the implementation and outcomes of TTT projects at the interim and at the end of the project period. The data collection affects the TTT grantee cohort that corresponds with the third and final performance period. Therefore, only one to two cohorts would participate in the evaluation at any one time. Currently, grantees provide data in a consistent manner in the annual performance reports on the GPRA measures: the number of participants, TORs, and certified and retained teachers. However, these reports do not provide adequate information on how the major project components (as identified under TTT Program Components) are being implemented by all grantees. In addition, while data on the program performance measures have been reported consistently across grantees, specific information on project participants, other TTT components such as preparation and support, and project measures is reported inconsistently across projects due to differences in project implementation and State requirements. This data collection provides information on the various components as undertaken by grantees and how various project activities support the goals of each project as well as the performance goals of the TTT program. In order to describe program implementation and the processes used by grantees to recruit and retain teachers as described in the program components above, additional data are necessary and these data need to be reported consistently by all grantees.
The data collection consists of an electronic survey to be completed by each TTT Project Director or project designee. Project Directors or their designee complete this survey at the interim (during the third year) and in the final year of the project. The survey complements the annual performance report and the project evaluation. Items are constructed to answer the following evaluation questions, organized around the components of the TTT program:
What strategies were used to recruit TTT participants?
What factors and processes were used to select TTT participants?
How were participants prepared to become certified to teach in high-need schools in high-need LEAs?
What was the process for placing TORs in high-need schools? What were the major barriers to placement?
How were TORs supported? Which support activities (mentoring, team teaching, common planning times, etc.) were successful in retaining teachers?
The data from this collection is used to prepare a report for the Secretary and Congress on the implementation of the TTT program for a given cohort of grantees at the interim and at the end of the project period. This program evaluation report includes information on the recruitment, selection, preparation, placement, support, and retention of TTT participants in high-need schools in high-need LEAs for at least three years. Data from the data collection instrument, (electronic survey) completed by the Project Director or designee will be combined with the content analysis of grantee performance reports and evaluation reports to provide a complete picture of program implementation.
Collecting data from each grantee on the same items through this data collection will allow ED and the TTT program to aggregate data on items that are important for a clearer and more accurate understanding of the implementation of TTT by an entire cohort. These data will supplement the program measure numbers and enhance the project-specific information provided in the individual performance and evaluation reports, resulting in a more complete report on program implementation to the Secretary, Congress, TTT grantees, and other interested parties. ED will also use these data to improve program management and technical assistance to grantees.
The contractor uses an electronic survey to collect information from grantees. The survey will be structured to allow users to enter data in multiple sessions so respondents can schedule time for the survey accordingly. Since TTT grantees have ready access to the Internet and are accustomed to communicating with ED via email, the electronic dissemination of the survey is appropriate for this population.
During the data collection and reporting period, TTT program staff will be available to respond to any grantee inquiries.
The data collection will build on the findings of previous reports, make use of survey items from the previous survey, as appropriate, and focus on new grantee cohorts. It will be conducted in conjunction with the submission of the grantee annual performance and interim and final evaluation reports. The contractor and TTT staff will coordinate all correspondence to grantees to present the survey and the performance and evaluation reports as an interrelated task and to avoid redundancy. The survey instrument has been developed to build upon the reporting requirements of each project and to collect data on project implementation that are currently not reported elsewhere. The contractor has also reviewed previous project reports and program documents used to guide the review of grantee performance and evaluation reports in order to identify the data elements most vital to the program evaluation.
No small businesses or entities will be involved as respondents.
A program evaluation report for the Secretary and Congress can be prepared without this data collection. The program will continue to use the information submitted by grantees in their annual project performance reports (524B) and interim evaluations to report to the Secretary and to Congress on the status of the TTT program. However, as noted under Current Reporting Requirements, there are gaps that prevent the program from fully reporting on all aspects of program implementation. The program evaluation will be severely limited by the lack of information on the major components of the TTT program. In addition, since most of the information provided in the current project performance reports and evaluations is qualitative, it is difficult to aggregate and analyze in order to make valid and reliable points about the program as a whole. In short, without this requested data collection, the quality of the program evaluation report will be compromised and data that can better inform the Secretary, Congress, and the program staff about the implementation of the TTT program will not be available.
There are no special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5.
Both a 60-and 30-day Federal Register Notice (FRN) was published in March and June 2015, the Department did not receive any comments during the 60-day FRN comment period.
There are no payments or gifts to respondents other than the allocation of Federal funds that result from the TTT grant award.
This project does not include any questions of a sensitive nature. As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, information will be provided to grantees about the purpose of the data collection and how ED will use the information to evaluate the TTT program.
The estimated annual response burden is 42 person hours. TTT grantees will be asked to complete the survey in conjunction with their interim and final performance and evaluation reports. Thus, grantees from different cohorts would complete the survey at different points in time.
Exhibit 1: Reporting Schedule for TTT Grantees by Cohort
|
Interim performance report and evaluation |
Final performance report and evaluation |
FY 2007 cohort (42 grantees) |
N/A |
Dec 2012 |
FY 2009 cohort (21 grantees) |
May 2012 |
Dec 2014 |
FY 2011 cohort (30 grantees) |
May 2014 |
Dec 2017 |
Note: Dates shaded are completed tasks. Dates in bold fall within the potential dates for approval.
The survey is estimated to take one hour to complete. Using an hourly rate for LEA administrators taken from California Department of Education financial data, the total cost of the reporting would be $7,488 (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2: Estimated Burden for TTT Survey by Cohort and Total
TTT Cohort |
Reporting date |
Number of respondents |
Total Hour Burden |
Hourly Rate |
Monetary Burden |
FY 2007 cohort |
Dec 2012 |
42 |
42 |
$52 |
$2,184 |
TOTAL |
|
42 |
42 |
- |
$2,184 |
There are no additional respondent costs aside from those outlined in section A12.
The total cost to the Federal Government for the data collection is approximately $205,000. These costs are associated with (1) developing the data collection protocol, (2) providing technical assistance and guidance to grantees as they complete the survey, (3) analyzing the survey data and combining these with data from the performance reports (524B forms) and evaluation reports, (4) preparing a written program evaluation report for the Secretary and Congress, and (5) disseminating the results through briefings and presentations at TTT conferences.
There are no program changes or adjustments to this extension request.
The contractor will produce a report on the program implementation following each reporting period outlined in section A12 above. These reports will use data from the new data collection and also incorporate findings from the analysis of performance reports (524B forms) and evaluation reports. These reports will be used by TTT staff to plan for technical assistance and to report to the Secretary and Congress of the status of the program. The contractor will also present findings from the data collection to grantees during TTT conferences and meetings, and to other interested parties as needed.
No request is being made for exemption from displaying the expiration date.
This collection of information involves no exceptions to the Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions.
1 Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, Title II, Part C, Subpart 1, Chapter B, Sec. 2314(b).
Transition to Teaching (TTT)
Program Evaluation and Assistance page
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | PART A |
| Author | Flaherty |
| Last Modified By | Tomakie Washington |
| File Modified | 2015-06-01 |
| File Created | 2015-06-01 |