44436 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 147 / Thursday, July 31, 2014 / Notices 

remedial coursework offered by direct 

assessment. 

All other provisions of the title IV 

student assistance regulations, 

including the requirement that the 

institution apply for approval for direct 

assessment program eligibility under 34 

CFR 668.10(b), will remain in effect. 

Federal Work Study—Near-Peer 

Counseling 

Background 

Section 443(b)(5) of the HEA provides 

that, except under limited 

circumstances, the Federal share of 

compensation paid to students 

employed under the Federal WorkStudy (FWS) Program may not exceed 

75 percent. The remaining portion must 

come from institutional or other nonFederal funds. 

This experiment provides financial 

encouragement to institutions to 

develop, implement, or expand FWS 

placements that provide ‘‘near-peer 

counseling’’ to high-school students, 

especially at-risk and underrepresented 

students. This experiment reflects 

emerging evidence that counseling 

provided by college students similar in 

age and circumstances to the high 

school students they counsel is effective 

in raising rates of college enrollment. 

Under this experiment, the regular 

‘‘matching’’ share of FWS compensation 

will be reduced or eliminated, allowing 

institutions to use up to 100 percent of 

Federal funds to provide compensation 

to its FWS near-peer counselors. 

Description 

This experiment will waive the 

statutory and regulatory requirements 

that prohibit the Federal share of 

compensation paid to a student under 

the FWS Program from exceeding 75 

percent for near-peer counselors and 

mentors employed by the institution. 

For the purpose of this experiment, 

near-peer counselors or mentors are any 

of an institution’s students whose FWSfunded jobs are to provide counseling or 

mentoring to high school students in 

matters of college readiness, student aid, 

career counseling, or financial literacy. 

Under this experiment, an institution 

must ensure that its near-peer 

counselors or mentors are 

knowledgeable in the aforementioned 

subjects, are either experienced in or 

trained in relevant counseling or 

mentoring techniques, and that the 

activities, information, and initiatives 

under the near-peer counseling or 

mentoring program are targeted to the 

needs of high school students. 

Institutions must also ensure that their 

FWS near-peer counselors or mentors 

are not involved in any institutional 

marketing or recruitment activities, 

particularly for the institution itself. 

Through this experiment, the 

Department hopes to gain a better 

understanding of how FWS programs 

offered by institutions may change after 

the FWS matching requirement for nearpeer counseling is waived, including 

potential changes in the number or 

characteristics of FWS-supported 

students overall and of those who 

participate in near-peer counseling 

programs. The Department is also 

interested in learning about the level of 

student participation in FWS programs 

at institutions and characteristics of 

institutions’ FWS students, especially 

those employed in community service 

jobs and those who participate in nearpeer mentoring programs. 

Waivers 

Institutions selected for this 

experiment will be exempt from the 

following statutory and regulatory 

provisions: 

• HEA section 443(b)(5) and the 

regulations at 34 CFR 675.26 (a), which 

generally provide that the Federal share 

of compensation paid to an FWS 

student may not exceed 75 percent. 

All other provisions and regulations of 

the title IV student assistance programs 

and specifically regarding the FWS 

program will remain in effect. 

Accessible Format: Individuals with 

disabilities can obtain this document in 

an accessible format (e.g. braille, large 

print, audiotape, or compact disc) on 

request to the contact person listed 

under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

CONTACT. 

Electronic Access to This Document: 

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 via the Federal Digital System 

at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. 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 Adobe 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: HEA, section 487A(b); 

20 U.S.C. 1094a(b). 

Dated: July 25, 2014. 

Lynn Mahaffie, 

Acting Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary 

Education. 

[FR Doc. 2014–18075 Filed 7–30–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

[Docket ID ED–2014–OCTAE–0106] 

Performance Partnership Pilots for 

Disconnected Youth 

AGENCY: Office of Career, Technical, and 

Adult Education, Department of 

Education. 

ACTION: Request for public comment. 

SUMMARY: The Secretary invites written 

comments on the implementation of 

Performance Partnership Pilots for 

Disconnected Youth, which will offer a 

unique opportunity for States, localities, 

and tribes to test innovative, costeffective, and outcome-focused 

strategies for improving results for 

disconnected youth. Working with other 

Federal agencies, the U.S. Department of 

Education (Department) will solicit 

applications for these pilots. Through 

this notice, the Department seeks input 

on the application process that we 

intend to use. 

DATES: We must receive your comments 

by August 7, 2014. 

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments 

through the Federal eRulemaking Portal 

or via U.S. mail, commercial delivery, or 

hand delivery. We will not accept 

comments by fax or by email or those 

submitted after the comment period. To 

ensure that we do not receive duplicate 

copies, please submit your comments 

only once. In addition, please include 

the Docket ID and the term 

‘‘Performance Partnership Pilots’’ at the 

top of your comments. 

If you are submitting comments 

electronically, we strongly encourage 

you to submit any comments or 

attachments in Microsoft Word format. 

If you must submit a comment in 

Portable Document Format (PDF), we 

strongly encourage you to convert the 

PDF to print-to-PDF format or to use 

some other commonly used searchable 

text format. Please do not submit the 

PDF in a scanned or read-only format. 

Using a print-to-PDF format allows the 

Department of Education (Department) 

to electronically search and copy certain 

portions of your submissions. 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: To 

submit your comments electronically, 

go to www.regulations.gov. Information 

on using Regulations.gov, including 

instructions for accessing agency 


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Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 147 / Thursday, July 31, 2014 / Notices 44437 

documents, submitting comments, and 

viewing the docket, is available on the 

site under ‘‘Are you new to the site?’’ 

• U.S. Mail, Commercial Delivery, or 

Hand Delivery: If you mail or deliver 

your comments, address them to Braden 

Goetz, U.S. Department of Education, 

550 12th Street SW., Room 11141, 

Potomac Center Plaza (PCP), 

Washington, DC 20202. Please note that 

mail sent through the U.S. Mail is 

subject to X-ray or heat treatment, 

which typically results in delays and 

may damage paper products. 

Privacy Note: The Department’s 

policy for comments received from 

members of the public (including 

comments submitted by mail, 

commercial delivery, or hand delivery) 

is to make these submissions available 

for public viewing in their entirety on 

the Federal eRulemaking Portal at 

www.regulations.gov. Therefore, 

commenters should be careful to 

include in their comments only 

information that they wish to make 

publicly available on the Internet. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Braden Goetz, U.S. Department of 

Education, 550 12th Street SW., Room 

11141, PCP, Washington, DC 20202. 

Telephone: (202) 245–7405 or by email 

at: Braden.Goetz@ed.gov. 

If you use a telecommunications 

device for the deaf (TDD) or a text 

telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay 

Service (FRS), toll free, at 1–800–877– 

8339. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Performance Partnership Pilots for 

Disconnected Youth (P3) offer a unique 

opportunity to test innovative, costeffective, and outcome-focused 

strategies for improving results for 

disconnected youth. Through these 

pilots, we hope to learn more about 

whether providing additional flexibility 

for States, localities, and Indian tribes to 

pool funds and waive programmatic 

requirements will help them overcome 

some of the significant hurdles they may 

face in improving outcomes for 

disconnected youth. 

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 

2014 (Pub. L. 113–76) (the Act), under 

Section 526 of Division H, authorizes 

the Departments of Education, Labor, 

and Health and Human Services, along 

with the Corporation for National and 

Community Service and the Institute of 

Museum and Library Services 

(collectively, the Agencies), to enter into 

a total of up to ten Performance 

Partnership Agreements with States, 

localities, or tribal governments 

receiving funds under multiple Federal 

programs that give grantees additional 

flexibility in using these funds to 

achieve significant improvement in 

outcomes for disconnected youth. In the 

Act, ‘‘ ‘to improve outcomes for 

disconnected youth’ means to increase 

the rate at which individuals between 

the ages of 14 and 24 (who are lowincome and either homeless, in foster 

care, involved in the juvenile justice 

system, unemployed, or not enrolled in 

or at-risk of dropping out of an 

educational institution) achieve success 

in meeting educational, employment, or 

other key goals.’’ (Section 526(a)(2) of 

Division H of the Act). We describe 

significant elements of these pilots in 

the following paragraphs. 

Blending Funds 

The P3 pilots are designed to facilitate 

flexible use of existing Federal funding 

streams that were made available under 

the Act. The theory of action behind P3 

is that blending funds should reduce 

administrative burdens, and thereby 

enhance pilot sites’ capability to 

effectively use resources from multiple 

Federal, State, tribal, local, and 

philanthropic funding streams, such as 

by enabling pilot sites to better align 

project objectives, delivery of services, 

measurement strategies, and reporting. 

The pilots must involve Federal 

programs focused on serving 

disconnected youth or designed to 

prevent youth from disconnecting from 

school or work, and that provide 

education, training, employment, and 

other related services. Thus, under the 

Act, States, localities, and tribes that 

enter into a P3 agreement may blend 

fiscal year (FY) 2014 discretionary 

funds, including both formula and 

competitive grant funds, from the 

Agencies in order to implement 

outcome-focused strategies for serving 

disconnected youth. This blending of 

funds, including individual funding 

streams, or portions of them, will be 

accomplished under a partnership 

agreement that will provide for a single 

set of reporting and other requirements 

to govern the pilot. This single set of 

requirements may differ from the 

various requirements associated with 

each of the original, individual funding 

streams. 

Before any of the Agencies can 

participate in a Performance Partnership 

Pilot, the agency head must determine, 

in writing, that the agency’s 

participation in the pilot (1) will not 

result in denying or restricting the 

eligibility of any individual for any of 

the services that (in whole or in part) are 

supported by the agency’s programs and 

Federal discretionary funds that are 

involved in the Pilot, and (2) based on 

the best available information, will not 

otherwise adversely affect vulnerable 

populations that receive those services. 

The Agencies have identified flexible 

FY 2014 funds under existing 

authorities that the Department will 

award as start-up grants. These grants, 

which will likely be several hundred 

thousand dollars each, will help to 

support each pilot’s start-up costs, such 

as activities related to planning, 

governance, and coordination. 

Applicants will describe in their 

proposals how they will use these 

funds, along with the funds the 

applicants propose to blend under the 

Performance Partnerships authority, to 

develop and implement high-quality 

Performance Partnership Pilots to 

improve outcomes for disconnected 

youth. 

Waivers 

In order to provide applicants with 

the flexibility required to implement a 

pilot through the effective blending of 

Federal and non-Federal funds, the Act 

provides that the Agencies may waive 

requirements associated with individual 

programs contributing funds. P3 

authority states that heads of the 

Agencies may not only exercise any 

existing waiver authority, but also waive 

any statutory, regulatory, or 

administrative requirement that they are 

otherwise not authorized to waive, so 

long as the waiver is in keeping with 

important safeguards. Specifically, 

waivers must be consistent with the 

statutory purposes of the respective 

Federal programs contributing funds to 

the pilot and necessary to achieve the 

pilot’s outcomes. In addition, the 

Agencies may not waive requirements 

related to nondiscrimination, wage and 

labor standards, and allocation of funds 

to State and substate levels. 

In practice, P3 waiver authority 

should enable applicants to take a more 

outcome-focused approach to providing 

services by: First, identifying the 

population to be served; second, 

determining the most effective strategies 

for serving that population; third, 

selecting funding streams appropriate to 

support those strategies; and, lastly, 

clarifying which program rules and 

requirements would need to be waived 

in order to implement the strategies. 

The waiver authority will allow 

communities and the Federal 

government to identify eligible youth 

and design the allowable activities and 

reporting requirements so that they 

support the locally determined goals 

and objectives of the pilot. 

Performance Partnership Agreements 

Each pilot will be governed by a 

performance agreement between a lead 


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44438 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 147 / Thursday, July 31, 2014 / Notices 

1The Request for Information on Disconnected 

Youth can be found at www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/ 

FR-2012-06-04/2012-13473. 

2This consultation paper, Answers to Frequently 

Asked Questions, and other information about the 

Performance Partnership Pilots authority can be 

found at www.findyouthinfo.gov/youth-topics/

reconnecting-youth/performance-partnership-pilots. 

3Recordings of the webinars can be found at 

http://www.findyouthinfo.gov/youth-topics/

reconnecting-youth/performance-partnershippilots/webcast. 

Federal agency, which will be 

designated by the Office of Management 

and Budget and will act on behalf of the 

Agencies, and the respective 

representatives of all of the State, local, 

or tribal governments participating in 

the pilot. 

Limitations 

The Act does not provide authority 

for pilots to blend funding or waive 

provisions of Federal programs funded 

with mandatory appropriations (such as 

Temporary Assistance for Needy 

Families or Medicaid). However, the 

performance agreements must identify 

any statutory, regulatory, or 

administrative requirements related to 

programs funded with mandatory 

appropriations that pilot sites determine 

would be barriers to achieving the 

pilot’s outcomes. Pilots also do not 

extend to programs funded outside of 

the Act, such as those administered by 

the Department of Justice and the 

Department of Housing and Urban 

Development. However, pilot 

jurisdictions may seek waivers or 

administrative flexibility already 

authorized under programs 

administered by these other agencies in 

order to improve their coordination and 

alignment with the pilot project. 

Request for Public Comment 

The Agencies consider public input 

critical to the effective implementation 

of the P3 authority. In June 2012, the 

Department published a Request for 

Information on Disconnected Youth in 

the Federal Register (77 FR 32959) (RFI) 

seeking public input regarding the 

implementation of the authority, which 

was first proposed by the 

Administration in the FY 2013 budget 

request.1 The 171 comments the 

Department received in response to the 

RFI emphasized the need for greater 

flexibility, highlighted promising 

initiatives, and offered 

recommendations for effectively serving 

disconnected youth and administering 

P3. The responses helped inform our 

thinking about how best to implement 

this new authority. 

On April 28, 2014, the Agencies 

issued a consultation paper, Changing 

the Odds for Disconnected Youth: Initial 

Design Considerations for Performance 

Partnership Pilots, that provides 

background information about the pilot 

authority and describes the Agencies’ 

initial thinking about the 

implementation of the authority.2 The 

paper also encouraged stakeholders to 

respond by email to key questions about 

implementing P3 pilots. The Agencies 

also used their research and analysis for 

the paper to guide two national 

webinars on April 21 and 30, 2014 that 

provided information to the field and 

solicited feedback about the 

implementation of the authority.3

The consultation paper indicated that 

the Agencies were considering a twostep application process that would first 

seek brief preliminary applications and 

then invite full proposals from the 

strongest candidates. Since the 

publication of the consultation paper, 

the Agencies have decided instead to 

require applicants to submit one full 

proposal through a single-step process. 

This change will enable applicants to 

have more time to prepare their 

proposals. 

Later this summer, the Department, 

acting on behalf of the Agencies, expects 

to publish a notice inviting applications. 

While under the Administrative 

Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553) the 

Department generally offers interested 

parties the opportunity to comment on 

proposed priorities, definitions, and 

other requirements for a grant 

competition, the Department plans to 

waive rulemaking requirements for this 

new program, pursuant to its authority 

in section 437(d)(1) of the General 

Education Provisions Act (GEPA). 

Section 437(d)(1) of GEPA allows the 

Secretary to exempt from rulemaking 

requirements and regulations governing 

the first grant competition under a new 

or substantially revised program 

authority. Because this is the first grant 

competition for the Performance 

Partnership Pilots, it qualifies for this 

exemption. Therefore, in order to 

expedite the selection of the entities that 

will be awarded P3 authority and startup grant funding, the Department plans 

to forego public comment on the 

priorities, definitions, and requirements 

that will apply to the P3 competition. 

However, through this notice, we are 

seeking additional public input on the 

application process for P3. The 

Agencies will consider all relevant 

comments when finalizing the P3 

application process and competition 

design. 

Note: This request for public comment is 

for information and planning purposes only 

and should not be construed as a solicitation 

for applications or as an obligation on the 

part of the Agencies. 

We are particularly interested in 

responses to the following questions: 

1. What information, in addition to 

the information required by the Act, 

should entities be required to submit in 

their applications? 

2. What criteria should the Agencies 

use to evaluate applications? 

3. What technical assistance would be 

helpful to entities in preparing their 

applications? 

Note: The consultation paper includes 

additional background information about P3 

and the Agencies’ initial thinking about its 

implementation that may be helpful in 

considering these questions. 

Accessible Format: Individuals with 

disabilities can obtain this document in 

an accessible format (e.g., braille, large 

print, audiotape, or compact disc) on 

request to the program contact person 

listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

CONTACT. 

Electronic Access to This Document: 

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 via the Federal Digital System 

at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. At this site, you 

can view this document, as well as all 

other documents of the Departments 

published in the Federal Register, in 

text or Adobe 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 

Departments 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 Departments. 

Authority: Section 526, Division H of P.L. 

113–76. 

Dated: July 28, 2014. 

Johan E. Uvin, 

Acting Assistant Secretary for Career, 

Technical, and Adult Education. 

[FR Doc. 2014–18077 Filed 7–30–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 


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