48940 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 185 / Friday, September 25, 2009 / Notices 

this collection necessary to the proper 

functions of the Department; (2) will 

this information be processed and used 

in a timely manner; (3) is the estimate 

of burden accurate; (4) how might the 

Department enhance the quality, utility, 

and clarity of the information to be 

collected; and (5) how might the 

Department minimize the burden of this 

collection on the respondents, including 

through the use of information 

technology. 

Dated: September 22, 2009. 

Angela C. Arrington, 

Director, Information Collection Clearance 

Division, Regulatory Information 

Management Services, Office of Management. 

Office of Special Education and 

Rehabilitative Services 

Type of Review: Revision. 

Title: Report of Dispute Resolution 

Under Part C of the Individuals with 

Disabilities Education Act. 

Frequency: Annually. 

Affected Public: State, Local, or Tribal 

Gov’t, SEAs or LEAs. 

Reporting and Recordkeeping Hour 

Burden: 

Responses: 56. 

Burden Hours: 3,360. 

Abstract: This package provides 

instructions and forms necessary for 

States to report the number of written, 

signed complaints; mediation requests; 

and hearing requests and the status of 

these actions with regards to children 

being served under Part C of IDEA 

initiated during the reporting year. The 

form satisfies reporting requirements 

and is used by the Office of Special 

Education Programs (OSEP) to monitor 

SEAs and for Congressional reporting. 

Requests for copies of the proposed 

information collection request may be 

accessed from http://edicsweb.ed.gov, 

by selecting the ‘‘Browse Pending 

Collections’’ link and by clicking on 

link number 4145. When you access the 

information collection, click on 

‘‘Download Attachments’’ to view. 

Written requests for information should 

be addressed to U.S. Department of 

Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., 

LBJ, Washington, DC 20202–4537. 

Requests may also be electronically 

mailed to ICDocketMgr@ed.gov or faxed 

to 202–401–0920. Please specify the 

complete title of the information 

collection when making your request. 

Comments regarding burden and/or 

the collection activity requirements 

should be electronically mailed to 

ICDocketMgr@ed.gov. Individuals who 

use a telecommunications device for the 

deaf (TDD) may call the Federal 

Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 

1–800–877–8339. 

[FR Doc. E9–23206 Filed 9–24–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Notice of Public Hearing 

AGENCY: U.S. Department of Education, 

National Assessment Governing Board 

ACTION: Notice of public hearing 

SUMMARY: The National Assessment 

Governing Board is announcing a public 

hearing on October 19, 2009 to obtain 

comment on expert panel 

recommendations on uniform national 

rules for testing of Students with 

Disabilities (SD) and English Language 

Learners (ELL) on the National 

Assessment of Educational Progress 

(NAEP). 

Public and private parties and 

organizations are invited to present 

written and/or oral testimony. The 

hearing will be held in the Board 

meeting room on the first floor of the 

headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified 

School District, 333 South Beaudry 

Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90017 from 9:30 

a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT. 

This notice sets forth the schedule 

and proposed agenda of a forthcoming 

public hearing of the National 

Assessment Governing Board. This 

notice also describes the functions of 

the Board. Notice of this meeting is 

required under Section 10(a)(2) of the 

Federal Advisory Committee Act. This 

document is intended to notify members 

of the general public of their 

opportunity to provide comment. 

Individuals who will need special 

accommodations in order to attend the 

hearing (such as interpreting services, 

assistive listening devices, materials in 

alternative format) should notify Munira 

Mwalimu at 202–357–6938 or at 

Munira.Mwalimu@ed.gov no later than 

October 14, 2009. We will attempt to 

meet requests after this date, but cannot 

guarantee availability of the requested 

accommodation. The meeting site is 

accessible to individuals with 

disabilities. 

DATES: October 19, 2009. 

Location: Los Angeles, CA. Board 

Meeting Room, Headquarters of Los 

Angeles Unified School District, 333 

South Beaudry Ave., Los Angeles, CA 

90017. 

Time: 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT. 

Background: Under Public Law 107– 

279, the National Assessment Governing 

Board (NAGB) is responsible for 

determining the content and 

methodology of the National 

Assessment of Educational Progress 

(NAEP). The assessment is required to 

provide a fair and accurate 

measurement of student academic 

achievement through a random 

sampling process that produces 

representative data for the nation, the 

states, and other participating 

jurisdictions. 

Despite changes in policy during the 

past decade, variations in inclusion and 

accommodation rates continue for 

students with disabilities and English 

language learners among states and 

urban districts participating in the 

National Assessment. These 

differences—both between jurisdictions 

and over time—continue to prompt 

concern about the fairness and 

comparability of NAEP results. 

The Governing Board has established 

an Ad Hoc Committee of Board 

members to conduct a comprehensive 

examination of NAEP testing and 

reporting of these two student groups. 

The Committee appointed two technical 

advisory panels to recommend uniform 

national rules for NAEP testing of SD 

and ELL students to better assure that 

NAEP samples are fully representative 

and produce comparable results. These 

panels reported to the Board at its 

meeting on August 6 and 7, 2009. The 

Board plans to consult widely before 

deciding whether or not to adopt the 

expert panel recommendations. 

The reports and recommendations 

being considered are available under 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION in this 

notice and on the Web site of the 

Governing Board at http:// 

www.nagb.org. Other related material on 

the Governing Board and NAEP may be 

found at this Web site and at http:// 

www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard. 

The Board is seeking comment from 

policymakers, teachers, researchers, 

state and local school administrators, 

specialists in SD and ELL students, 

parents of children in elementary and 

secondary schools, representatives of 

interested organizations, and members 

of the public. Representatives of the 

Governing Board will conduct the 

hearing to receive testimony, and may 

ask clarifying questions or respond to 

presentations. Oral presentations should 

not exceed ten minutes. Testimony will 

become part of the public record. 

All views will be considered by the 

Ad Hoc Committee and the full Board. 

It is anticipated that the Committee will 

make recommendations to the 

Governing Board at the Governing Board 

meetings in November 2009 and March 

2010. 

To register to present oral testimony 

on October 19, 2009 at the Los Angeles 

school district headquarters, please call 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 185 / Friday, September 25, 2009 / Notices 48941 

Tessa Regis, of the National Assessment 

Governing Board staff, at 202–357–7500 

or send an e-mail to tessa.regis@ed.gov 

by 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Friday, 16, 

2009. Written testimony should be sent 

by mail, fax or e-mail for receipt in the 

Board office by October 23, 2009. 

The Board will make an effort to hear 

testimony from all persons who wish to 

address it at the hearing without prior 

registration. Speakers are encouraged to 

bring written statements for distribution 

at the hearing. 

Testimony should be sent to: National 

Assessment Governing Board, 800 North 

Capitol Street, NW., — Suite 825, 

Washington, DC 20002, Attention: Tessa 

Regis, Fax: (202) 357–6945, E-mail: 

tessa.regis@ed.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Tessa Regis or Lawrence Feinberg, 

National Assessment Governing Board, 

800 North Capitol Street, NW., Suite 

825, Washington, DC 20002–4233, 

Telephone: (202) 357–6938. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

National Assessment Governing Board 

is established under section 412 of the 

National Education Statistics Act of 

1994, as amended. The Board 

formulates policy guidelines for the 

National Assessment of Educational 

Progress (NAEP). The Board’s 

responsibilities include selecting subject 

areas to be assessed, developing 

assessment specifications and 

frameworks, designing the methodology 

of the assessment, developing 

appropriate student achievement levels 

for each grade and subject tested, 

developing standards and procedures 

for interstate and national comparisons, 

developing guidelines for reporting and 

disseminating results, and releasing 

initial NAEP results to the public. 

The expert panel recommendations 

being considered by the Governing 

Board are summarized below. They are 

not mutually exclusive. Some could go 

into effect quickly while others would 

be for medium-term or long-range 

implementation. NAEP is a 

representative-sample survey, designed 

to produce valid, comparable data on 

the academic achievement of large 

groups of students. It is prohibited by 

law from providing results for 

individual children or schools. The 

recommendations are being considered 

because of concern that variations in 

exclusion and accommodation practices 

may jeopardize the fairness and 

comparability of NAEP results. 

The recommendations on which 

public comment is sought are 

summarized as follows: 

By Expert Panel on Uniform National 

Rules for NAEP Testing of English 

Language Learners 

(1) ELLs in all states and districts 

selected for the NAEP sample who have 

been in United States schools for one 

year or more should be included in the 

National Assessment. This policy 

should be implemented with the 

disaggregated reporting of ELL test 

results by detailed information on 

students’ English language proficiency 

and the availability of accommodations 

that maximize meaningful participation. 

(2) Students should be offered ELLresponsive accommodations that 

maintain the constructs in the NAEP 

framework, including items and 

directions in plain language, side-byside bilingual Spanish-English test 

booklets, word-to-word bilingual 

glossaries without definitions, as well as 

other accommodations currently 

allowed by NAEP. The accommodations 

for each student should be selected at 

the local level by school personnel who 

are qualified to make judgments 

regarding the inclusion of the ELL in 

NAEP, including knowledge of his or 

her level of English language 

proficiency. 

(3) NAEP results for ELL students 

should be disaggregated and reported by 

the best available standardized 

assessment data on the level of English 

language proficiency. 

(4) To attain comparable participation 

rates across states and districts, special 

efforts should be made to inform and 

solicit the cooperation of state and local 

officials who decide upon the 

participation of individual students, 

including joint planning sessions and 

targeted information sharing. A high 

common goal for 95 percent or more of 

ELL students sampled to participate 

should be established. 

(5) NAEP should adopt an aggressive 

timeline for innovation and research, 

including (a) the development of test 

items written in plain language; (b) a 

short test of English language 

proficiency; (c) targeted testing with 

blocks of items at low and high levels 

of difficulty; and (d) computerized 

administration of the assessment when 

feasible. 

By Expert Panel on Uniform National 

Rules for NAEP Testing of Students 

With Disabilities 

(1) Encourage as many students as 

possible to participate in NAEP, and 

provide for the use of allowable 

accommodations that are necessary to 

enable students with disabilities to 

participate. 

(2) Clarify and expand NAEP’s 

guidance to schools, encouraging 

maximum participation of students with 

disabilities so at least 95 percent of 

those drawn for the NAEP sample 

participate. 

(3) Report separately on students who 

have individualized education programs 

(IEPs) and those with Section 504 plans, 

but (except to maintain trend) only 

count the students with IEPs as students 

with disabilities. 

(4) Provide incentives for schools to 

include students with disabilities, 

including additional outreach and 

public reporting of participation rates 

below 95% of students with disabilities. 

(5) Support research efforts to develop 

targeted testing for students at both the 

top and bottom levels of achievement, 

with sound procedures to identify 

students to receive targeted test booklets 

on the basis of their performance on 

some standard indicator of achievement. 

(6) Encourage and review research on 

the identification and progress of 

students who have a significant 

cognitive disability but in the short term 

do not test this 1% of students on 

NAEP. 

(7) Assess the English language 

proficiency of students with disabilities 

who are English language learners and 

are drawn for the NAEP sample and 

provide linguistically appropriate 

accommodations for those who need 

them before determining whether 

additional accommodations may be 

needed to address any disabilities those 

students may have. 

The full reports and recommendations 

of the technical advisory panels are 

available at http://nagb.org/newsroom/ 

PressReleasePDFs/ELL-Panel-Report.pdf 

and http://nagb.org/newsroom/ 

PressReleasePDFs/SD-Panel-Report.pdf. 

PowerPoint summaries are available at 

http://nagb.org/newsroom/ 

PressReleasePDFs/PPt-ELL-PanelReport.pdf and http://nagb.org/ 

newsroom/PressReleasePDFs/PPt-SDPanel-Report.pdf. 

A detailed summary of the hearing 

that is informative to the public and 

consistent with the policy of section 5 

U.S.C. 552b(c) will be available to the 

public within 14 days of the meeting. 

Records are kept of all Board 

proceedings and are available for public 

inspection at the U.S. Department of 

Education, National Assessment 

Governing Board, Suite #825, 800 North 

Capitol Street, NW., Washington, DC, 

from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time, 

Monday through Friday. 

Electronic Access to This Document: 

You may view this document, as well as 

all other documents of this Department 

published in the Federal Register, in 

text or Adobe Portable Document 

Format (PDF) on the Internet at the 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES
48942 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 185 / Friday, September 25, 2009 / Notices 

following site: http://www.ed.gov/news/ 

fedregister/index.html. To use PDF you 

must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, 

which is available free at this site. If you 

have questions about using PDF, call the 

U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), 

toll free at 1–888–293–6498; or in the 

Washington, DC, area at (202) 512–1530. 

Note: The official version of this document 

is the document published in the Federal 

Register. Free Internet access to the official 

edition of the Federal Register and the Code 

of Federal Regulations is available on GPO 

Access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/ 

index.html. 

Dated: September 22, 2009. 

Cornelia S. Orr, 

Executive Director, National Assessment 

Governing Board, U.S. Department of 

Education. 

[FR Doc. E9–23205 Filed 9–24–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Notice of Interim Approval 

AGENCY: Southeastern Power 

Administration, DOE. 

ACTION: Notice of Rate Order. 

SUMMARY: The Deputy Secretary of the 

Department of Energy, confirmed and 

approved, on an interim basis, Rate 

Schedules JW–1–I and JW–2–F. The 

rates were approved on an interim basis 

through September 19, 2014, and are 

subject to confirmation and approval by 

the Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission (Commission) on a final 

basis. 

DATES: Approval of rates on an interim 

basis is effective September 20, 2009. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Leon Jourolmon, Assistant 

Administrator, Finance & Marketing, 

Southeastern Power Administration, 

Department of Energy, 1166 Athens 

Tech Road, Elberton, Georgia 30635– 

6711, (706) 213–3800. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

Commission, by Order issued April 18, 

2005, in Docket No. EF04–3031–000, 

confirmed and approved Wholesale 

Power Rate Schedules JW–1–H and JW– 

2–E. Rate schedules JW–1–I and JW–2– 

F replace these schedules. 

Dated: September 18, 2009. 

Daniel B. Poneman, 

Deputy Secretary. 

Department of Energy, Deputy 

Secretary; In the Matter of: 

Southeastern Power Administration, 

Jim Woodruff Project Power Rates; Rate 

Order No. SEPA–51; Order Confirming 

and Approving Power Rates on an 

Interim Basis 

Pursuant to Sections 302(a) of the 

Department of Energy Organization Act, 

Public Law 95–91, the functions of the 

Secretary of the Interior and the Federal 

Power Commission under Section 5 of 

the Flood Control Act of 1944, 16 U.S.C. 

825s, relating to the Southeastern Power 

Administration (‘‘Southeastern’’ or 

‘‘SEPA’’) were transferred to and vested 

in the Secretary of Energy. By 

Delegation Order No. 00–037.00, 

effective December 6, 2001, the 

Secretary of Energy delegated to 

Southeastern’s Administrator the 

authority to develop power and 

transmission rates, delegated to the 

Deputy Secretary of Energy the 

authority to confirm, approve, and place 

in effect such rates on an interim basis, 

and delegated to the Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission 

(‘‘Commission’’) the authority to 

confirm, approve, and place into effect 

on a final basis or to disapprove rates 

developed by the Administrator under 

the delegation. This rate order is issued 

by the Deputy Secretary pursuant to 

said delegation. 

Background 

Power from the Jim Woodruff Project 

is presently sold under Wholesale 

Power Rate Schedules JW–1–H and JW– 

2–E. These rate schedules were 

approved by the Commission on April 

18, 2005, for a period ending September 

19, 2009 (111 FERC ¶61,067). 

Public Notice and Comment 

Southeastern prepared a Power 

Repayment Study, dated March 2009, 

that showed that revenues at current 

rates were not adequate to meet 

repayment criteria. A revised study with 

a revenue increase of $5,575,000 

produced rates that are adequate to meet 

repayment criteria. On March 11, 2009, 

by Federal Register notice (74 FR 

10570), Southeastern proposed a rate 

adjustment of about 70.6 percent to 

recover this revenue. The notice also 

announced a Public Information and 

Comment Forum to be held April 23, 

2009, in Tallahassee, Florida. Nine 

parties asked questions or made 

comments at the forum. Responses to 

the questions are part of the written 

record of the forum. Written comments 

were accepted on or before June 26, 

2009. Written comments were received 

from two sources. After review of all 

comments received Southeastern 

revised the repayment study. The new 

revised study with a revenue increase of 

$5,393,000 produces rates that are 

adequate to meet repayment criteria. 

The proposed rate adjustment is an 

increase of about 67.3 percent. 

Staff Review of Comments 

The following comments were 

received during the public comment 

period. Southeastern’s response follows 

each comment. 

Comment 1: The Southeastern Federal 

Power Customers (‘‘SeFPC’’) submitted 

comments on behalf of certain 

preference customers of the Jim 

Woodruff System (‘‘Jim Woodruff 

Preference Customers’’). The Jim 

Woodruff Preference Customers suggest 

setting aside the rate for the five year 

study period and preparing an interim 

one year rate, or in the alternative, 

setting a one year interim rate with an 

express understanding that SEPA will 

revisit the rate for the five year study 

period within one year. 

Response 1: Contract provisions in the 

Jim Woodruff System allow rate 

schedules to be adjusted periodically. 

One of the main drivers of this rate 

adjustment is the need to recover 

capitalized deficits in the rate period. 

The proposed rates are expected to 

recover these deficits in the five year 

period that the rate schedules are 

proposed to remain in effect. 

Southeastern interprets DOE Order RA 

6120.2 to call for the proposed rates to 

recover capitalized deficits in the rate 

period. To recover the capitalized 

deficits in a one-year period, the 

proposed rates would have to be 

substantially higher than Southeastern 

is proposing. Southeastern is proposing 

that the rate schedules be approved for 

a five year period and will, if the 

customers make a request to 

Southeastern, revisit these rates in one 

year. 

Comment 2: The Jim Woodruff 

Preference Customers suggest evaluating 

the implementation of the contract with 

Progress Energy Florida that supplies 

replacement power in the event that the 

Jim Woodruff Project is unavailable. 

Response 2: Southeastern cannot 

change the existing agreement or the 

interpretation of the existing agreement 

with Progress Energy Florida 

unilaterally. Any change to the 

implementation of the existing 

agreement or modification of the 

existing agreement will require the 

consent of Progress Energy Florida. The 

existing agreement is a bundled 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES