41536 Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 129 / Wednesday, July 5, 2000 / Notices

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

[CFDA No. 84.902K]

National Assessment of Educational

Progress (NAEP): Foreign Language—

Item Development; Office of

Educational Research and

Improvement; Notice Inviting

Applications for New Awards for Fiscal

Year (FY) 2000

Purpose of Program

The main purpose is to develop items

for the national assessment of foreign

language proficiency in 2003. The

program will also develop a block

design or designs and screening process,

assist in field test and scoring activities,

and write reports. It is planned that the

2003 NAEP will be conducted at the

national level in foreign language at

grade 12. The foreign language to be

assessed is Spanish. NAEP supports the

National Education Goals by providing

measures of progress toward student

competency over challenging subject

matter. For FY 2000, the competition for

new awards focuses on projects

designed to meet the priority we

describe in the PRIORITY section of this

application notice.

Eligible Applicants

Public, private, for-profit, and nonprofit institutions, agencies, and other

qualified organizations or consortia of

those institutions, agencies, and

organizations.

Applications Available: July 6, 2000.

Deadline for Transmittal of

Applications: August 21, 2000.

Estimated Available Funds: Up to

$2.5 million.

Estimated Number of Awards: 1.

Note: The Department is not bound by any

estimates in this notice.

Project Period: 40 months.

Applicable Regulations: The

Education Department General

Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) in

34 CFR parts 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 82, 85,

86, 97, 98 and 99.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The

framework for the assessment, upon

which the assessment items will be

based, is formulated by the National

Assessment Governing Board (NAGB).

The National Assessment of Educational

Progress is authorized by section 411 of

the National Education Statistics Act

1994, Title IV of the Improving

America’s Schools Act (20 U.S.C. 9010).

Section 412 (20 U.S.C. 9011) of this law

requires NAGB, among other

responsibilities, to formulate the policy

guidelines for the national assessment.

Copies of these guidelines are available

from the Department.

This notice is limited to seeking

applications for item development for

the foreign language assessment to be

conducted in 2003, and training of

scorers for that assessment. This does

not include data collection during field

testing and actual operation of the 2003

assessment. A separate grantee will field

test the items developed under this

grant. The grantee under this

competition will provide field test

information and revise the items for the

operational assessment. This grantee

will also assist with scoring the 2003

operational assessment.

Priority

This competition focuses on projects

designed to meet the priority which

implements the policy set by the NAGB

under section 412(e)(1)(A) of the

National Education Statistics Act of

1994, Title IV of the Improving

America’s Schools Act (20 U.S.C. 9010,

9011). Under 34 CFR 75.105(c)(2) and

20 U.S.C. 9010–9011, we consider only

applications that meet the following

priority.

Absolute Priority—Development of

the National Assessment of Educational

Progress for 2003 for foreign language

proficiency.

The grantee must perform this activity

in accordance with guidelines

developed by NAGB.

For Applications and Further

Information Contact: Janis Brown,

Ph.D., U.S. Department of Education,

National Center for Education Statistics,

1990 K Street, NW., Suite 8089,

Washington, DC 20006. Telephone:

(202) 502–7400. If you use a

telecommunications device for the deaf

(TDD), you may call the Federal

Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1–

800–877–8339.

Individuals with disabilities may

obtain this document in an alternative

format (e.g., Braille, large print,

audiotape, or computer diskette) on

request to the program contact person

listed under For Applications and

Further Information Contact.

Individuals with disabilities also may

obtain a copy of the application package

in an alternative format by contacting

that person. However, the Department is

not able to reproduce in an alternative

format the standard forms included in

the application package.

Electronic Access to This Document

You may view this document, as well

as all other Department of Education

documents published in the Federal

Register, in text or Adobe Portable

Document Format (PDF) on the Internet

at either of the following sites:

http://ocfo.ed.gov/fedreg.htm

http://www.ed.gov/news.html

To use the PDF you must have the

Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is

available free at either of the previous

sites. If you have questions about using

the PDF, call the U.S. Government

Printing Office (GPO), toll free, at 1–

888–293–6498; or in the Washington,

D.C., 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.access.gpo.gov/nara/

index.html.

Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 9010, 9011.

Dated: June 29, 2000.

C. Kent McGuire,

Assistant Secretary, Office of Educational,

Research and Improvement.

[FR Doc. 00–16907 Filed 7–3–00; 8:45 am]

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