Att_OMB EmergencyAPP MEMO

MEMORANDUM

DATE:

TO: Melanie Kadlic

Desk Officer

Office of Management and Budget

THRU: Joe Schubart

Team Leader

Information Management Team

FROM: Lynn Mahaffie

Director

Teacher and Student Development Service

RE: Emergency Clearance Request for the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants Program for Partnerships Application Package (84.336B and D)

The purpose of this memorandum is to request emergency processing and approval by February 1, 2004 for the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants Program for Partnerships (TQE-P) Application Package. The Department initially intended to hold a shorter application review process, omitting the pre-application requirement. However, it was determined that the governing statute and program regulations require a pre-application.

The following factors apply to this request:

• This program is essential to the mission of the agency. Improving teacher and principal quality is Objective 2.4 under Strategic Goal 2 (Improve Student Achievement) of the Department’s Strategic Plan. Improving student achievement is the core principle of the Administration’s groundbreaking “No Child Left Behind Act.”

• The agency cannot reasonably comply with the normal clearance procedures. When it was determined by the Office of the General Counsel that the aforementioned pre-application requirement could not be waived and that the Department would need to use a longer review process, the program determined that it would not be able to conduct the TQE-P competition in time to award grants by the end of the fiscal year without emergency clearance of the application from OMB.