68072 Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 249 / Tuesday, December 30, 1997 / Notice

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

[CFDA No.: 84.902B]

National Assessment of Educational

Progress (NAEP) Secondary Analysis

Program Notice Inviting Applications

for New Awards for Fiscal Year (FY)

1998

Purpose of Program: The purpose of

the NAEP Secondary Analysis program

is to encourage eligible parties to

prepare reports that would not

otherwise be available utilizing new

ideas or state-of-the-art techniques to

analyze and report the information

contained in NAEP and NAEP High

School Transcript Studies. Analyses and

reports prepared under this program

should potentially be useful to the

general public, parents, educators,

educational researchers, or policy

makers.

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: Public or

private organizations and consortia of

organizations

DEADLINE FOR TRANSMITTAL OF

APPLICATIONS: March 5, 1998

APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE:

January 5, 1998

AVAILABLE FUNDS: $700,000

ESTIMATED RANGE OF AWARDS:

$15,000–$110,000

ESTIMATED AVERAGE SIZE OF

AWARDS: $85,000

ESTIMATED NUMBER OF AWARDS:

5–7

MAXIMUM AWARD: The Secretary

will not consider an application that

proposes a budget exceeding $110,000.

Note: The Department is not bound by any

estimates in this notice.

PROJECT PERIOD: Up to 18 months

APPLICABLE REGULATIONS: (a) The

Education Department General

Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) in

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

and 86; and (b) the regulations in 34

CFR Part 700.

INVITATIONAL PRIORITIES: The

Secretary is particularly interested in

applications that meet one or more of

the invitational priorities in this notice.

However, an application that meets one

or more of these invitational priorities

does not receive competitive or absolute

preference over other applications (34

CFR 75.105(c)(1)).

Invitational Priority 1—Projects that

use NAEP achievement data alone or in

combination with other data sets to

assist policymakers and educators who

make decisions about curriculum and

instruction.

Invitational Priority 2—Projects

designed to assist states in analyzing,

interpreting and reporting their statelevel NAEP results.

Invitational Priority 3—Projects that

include the development of analytic

procedures that improve precision with

which NAEP estimates group and

subgroup performance.

Invitational Priority 4—Projects that

develop improved sampling procedures

for national or state-level NAEP.

Invitational Priority 5—Projects

whose analyses and reports include the

development of statistical software that

allows more advanced analytic

techniques to be readily applied to

NAEP data.

EVALUATION CRITERIA: The

Secretary selects from the criteria in 34

CFR 700.30(e) to evaluate applications

for new grants under this competition.

Under 34 CFR 700.30(a), the Secretary

announces in the application package

the evaluation criteria selected for this

competition and the maximum weight

assigned to each criterion.

FOR APPLICATIONS OR

INFORMATION CONTACT: For an

application package send written

request to Alex Sedlacek, U.S.

Department of Education, National

Center for Education Statistics, Office of

Educational Research and Improvement,

Room 404B, 555 New Jersey Avenue,

N.W., Washington, D.C. 20208–5653;

Internet (alexlsedlacek@ed.gov); or

FAX your request to (202) 219–2061

(include CFDA number listed above and

the surface mail address to which the

application should be sent). For

information contact Alex Sedlacek at

(202) 219–1734. Individuals who use a

telecommunications device for the deaf

(TDD) may call the Federal Information

Relay Service (FIRS) at 1–800–877–8339

between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Eastern time,

Monday through Friday.

Individuals with disabilities may

obtain this document in an alternate

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

audiotape, or computer diskette) on

request to the contact person listed in

the preceding paragraph.

Individuals with disabilities may

obtain a copy of the application package

in an alternate format, also, by

contacting that person. However, the

Department is not able to reproduce in

an alternate format the standard forms

included in the application package.

Electronic Access to This Document

Anyone may view this document, as

well as all other Department of

Education documents published in the

Federal Register, in text or portable

document format (pdf) on the World

Wide Web 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 Program with

Search, 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 toll

free at 1–888–293–6498.

Anyone may also view these

documents in text copy only on an

electronic bulletin board of the

Department. Telephone: (202) 219–1511

or, toll free, 1–800–222–4922. The

documents are located under Option

G—Files/Announcements, Bulletins and

Press Releases.

Note: The official version of a document is

the document published in the Federal

Register PROGRAM AUTHORITY: 20 U.S.C.

9010.

Dated: December 22, 1997.

Ricky T. Takai,

Acting Assistant Secretary for Educational

Research and Improvement.

[FR Doc. 97–339151 Filed 12–29–97; 8:45

am]

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