ED Response to 30-day FRN Public Comments

Public Comment Responses for Survey on the Use of Funds Under Title II, Part A: Improving Teacher Quality State Grants—Subgrants to LEAs Title II-A LEA Survey

Public comment: The Department received 3 public comments in response to Docket #ED-2017-ICCD-0149 (OMB #: 1810-0618). The comments were identical and represented multiple organizations. The public comment included two parts. The first was to support the data collection effort, highlighting its basis in law and commenting on its necessity to the functioning of the Department. This part of the comment requires no response. The second part was to encourage the Department to include additional information about how states and LEAs use Title II-A funds to support principals and other school leaders. Specifically,

• What specific types of professional development are offered to educators? School leaders?

• How do you measure the impact of professional development offered under this program for teachers and school leaders? What impact has this professional development had on the school leader directly, or on the school, students or other staff in general?

Response:

The Department appreciates the importance of these questions. The revised LEA survey asks about the content of both teacher and principal/school leader professional development (questions 6-9 for teachers; question 11 for principals and other school leaders). In response to this comment, the Department is adding an additional question (new question #10) to obtain information about the type of principal and other school leader professional development supported by LEAs to supplement the now question 11 about the topics of professional development for principals and school leaders supported by Title II-A. We believe that this added question addresses the first bullet above, while minimizing burden for districts filling out the survey. In a companion data collection effort from SEAs (OMB# 1810-0711) the Department is collecting information from SEAs about the extent that they are supporting principal professional development with Title II-A as well as information about the use of the additional 3% set-aside for activities for principals and other school leaders.

Finally, with respect to the impact of principal and school leader professional development, the current study is not an appropriate study design to credibly address impact. The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is currently conducting a random assignment study of principal support to assess impact of a professional development program (https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/projects/evaluation/tq_principals.asp). In addition, NCEE recently completed a study of feedback provided to principals based on evaluation ratings (https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/projects/evaluation/tq_performance.asp). Finally, the National Center for Education Research (NCER) NOTE: Supporting evaluation systems is a newly allowable use of Title II-A funds with ESSA.

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