Department of Education May 20, 2013 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services announces a priority for the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Projects and Centers Program administered by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). Specifically, we announce a priority for a Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Community Living and Participation for Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities. The Assistant Secretary may use this priority for competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2013 and later years. We take this action to focus research attention on areas of national need. We intend this priority to improve outcomes among individuals with disabilities.

The Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services announces a priority under the Technical Assistance to Improve State Data Capacity program. The Assistant Secretary may use this priority for competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2013 and later years. We take this action to focus attention on an identified national need to provide technical assistance (TA) to States to improve their capacity to meet the data collection and reporting requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). We intend this priority to establish a TA center to improve State capacity to accurately collect and report IDEA data (Data Center).

The Secretary of Education and Secretary of Health and Human Services (``the Secretaries'') propose priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria under the Race to the TopEarly Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) Grant program. The Secretaries may use one or more of these priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria for competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2013 and later years. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (collectively, ``the Departments'') conducted the first competition under the RTT-ELC program in FY 2011 and awarded grants to nine States. In FY 2012, the five next highest- rated applicants on the slate of high-scoring applications from the FY 2011 competition were funded at up to 50 percent of the funds each requested in their FY 2011 applications. We propose to maintain the overall purpose and structure of the FY 2011 RTT-ELC competition in future competitions. These proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria are almost identical to the ones used in the FY 2011 competition. We describe the changes at the beginning of each section of this document.