Department of Education December 20, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The purpose of this RFI is to collect information relating to assessment technology standards. Toward that end, we are posing a series of questions to which we invite interested members of the public to respond. The Department anticipates making use of this information in the following ways. First of all, we expect to use this information to help determine the appropriate interoperability standards for assessments and related work developed under the Race to the Top Assessment (RTTA) program. Secondly, we expect to use this information to help us develop related standards-based programs. For example, we might, in the future, offer additional grants, contracts, or awards and some of those offerings may include similar interoperability requirements. This RFI may be used to help set the interoperability requirements for those offerings as well as the existing RTTA program. Under the RTTA program, the Department requires grantees to develop assessments that (see https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop- assessment/executive-summary.pdf, p. 78): ``5. Maximize the interoperability of assessments across technology platforms and the ability for States to switch their assessments from one technology platform to another by (a) Developing all assessment items to an industry-recognized open- licensed interoperability standard that is approved by the Department during the grant period, without non-standard extensions or additions; and (b) Producing all student-level data in a manner consistent with an industry-recognized open-licensed interoperability standard that is approved by the Department during the grant period.''

The Department of Education (the Department), in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)), provides the general public and Federal agencies with an opportunity to comment on proposed and continuing collections of information. This helps the Department assess the impact of its information collection requirements and minimize the reporting burden on the public and helps the public understand the Department's information collection requirements and provide the requested data in the desired format. The Director, Information Collection Clearance Division, Regulatory Information Management Services, Office of Management, invites comments on the proposed information collection requests as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

The Secretary of Education publishes a semiannual agenda of Federal regulatory and deregulatory actions. The agenda is issued under the authority of section 4(b) of Executive Order 12866 ``Regulatory Planning and Review.'' The purpose of the agenda is to encourage more effective public participation in the regulatory process by providing the public with early information about pending regulatory activities.