Technical Assistance on State Data Collection-National Technical Assistance Center To Improve State Capacity To Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate Early Childhood IDEA Data

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <CFR>34 CFR Chapter III</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID ED-2024-OSERS-0001]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Technical Assistance on State Data Collection—National Technical Assistance Center To Improve State Capacity To Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate Early Childhood IDEA Data</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final priorities and requirements. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Education (Department) announces priorities and requirements for the National Technical Assistance Center To Improve State Capacity To Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate Early Childhood IDEA Data (Center) under the Technical Assistance on State Data Collection program. The Department may use these priorities and these requirements in fiscal year (FY) 2024 and later years. We will use the priorities to award a cooperative agreement for a Center to provide technical assistance (TA) to improve the capacity of States to meet the early childhood data collection and reporting requirements under Part B and Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The priority and requirements are effective August 21, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Meredith Miceli, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 4A10, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 987-0135. Email: <E T="03">Meredith.Miceli@ed.gov</E> . If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Purpose of Program:</E> The purpose of the Technical Assistance on State Data Collection program is to improve the capacity of States to meet IDEA data collection and reporting requirements. Funding for the program is authorized under section 611(c)(1) of IDEA, which gives the Secretary authority to reserve not more than one-half of one percent of the amounts appropriated under Part B for each fiscal year to provide TA activities, where needed, to improve the capacity of States to meet the data collection and reporting requirements under Parts B and C of IDEA. The maximum amount the Secretary may reserve under this set-aside for any fiscal year is $25,000,000, cumulatively adjusted by the rate of inflation. Section 616(i) of IDEA requires the Secretary to review the data collection and analysis capacity of States to ensure that data and information determined necessary for implementation of section 616 and 642 of IDEA are collected, analyzed, and accurately reported to the Secretary. It also requires the Secretary to provide TA, where needed, to improve the capacity of States to meet the data collection requirements, which include the data collection and reporting requirements in sections 616 and 618 of IDEA. In addition, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, gives the Secretary authority to use funds reserved under section 611(c) of IDEA to “administer and carry out other services and activities to improve data collection, coordination, quality, and use under parts B and C of the IDEA.” Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, Div. D, Title III, 138 Stat. 460, 685 (2024). <E T="03">Assistance Listing Number:</E> 84.373Z. <E T="03">Program Authority:</E> 20 U.S.C. 1411(c), 1416(i), 1418(c), 1418(d), 1442; Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, Div. D, Title III, 138 Stat. 460, 685 (2024). <E T="03">Applicable Program Regulations:</E> 34 CFR 300.702. We published a notice of proposed priority and requirements (NPP) for this program in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 22, 2024 (89 FR 13294). That document contained background information and our reasons for proposing the priority and requirements. There are differences between the NPP and this notice of final priority and requirements (NFP) as discussed in the <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes</E> section of this document. The most significant change, as discussed below, is the elimination of the requirement for an electronic open-source tool to assist States in linking and integrating their Part C early intervention and Part B preschool special education data with other data/data systems associated with other Federal programs that support infants, toddlers, and young children and their families. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> We are also adding expected outcome (i) for the Center. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  This NFP describes infants, toddlers and/or children with disabilities as “children with disabilities” or “young children with disabilities” to include children referred to both Parts C and B of the IDEA, birth through age five. </FTNT> <E T="03">Public Comment:</E> In response to our invitation in the NPP, eight parties submitted comments addressing the proposed priority and requirements. We received one additional comment unrelated to the priority. Generally, we do not address technical and other minor changes, or suggested changes the law does not authorize us to make under the applicable statutory authority. In addition, we do not address general comments that raised concerns not directly related to the proposed priority and requirements. <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes:</E> An analysis of the comments and of any changes in the priority and requirements since publication of the NPP follows. We received comments on a number of specific topics, including the topics for TA. Each topic is addressed below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">General Comments</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> All commenters specifically expressed support for the proposed Center, as it would improve State capacity for IDEA early childhood data collection, analysis, and reporting. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department appreciates the comments and agrees with the commenters that the Center funded under this program will provide necessary and valuable TA to States to improve the capacity of States to meet their IDEA early childhood data collection, analysis, and reporting requirements. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <E T="03">Comment:</E> The majority of commenters focused their comments on the Department's directed question regarding the phased-in funding strategy, which entails smaller initial awards followed by larger ones in subsequent years. Many expressed reservations about this approach, particularly in light of the expanded scope and obligations introduced by Proposed Priority 2: Technical Assistance To Improve State Capacity To Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate Child Find Data For Infants and Toddlers. They highlighted concerns about the added requirement to create an open-source electronic tool aimed at assisting States in integrating their Part C early intervention and Part B preschool special education data with other Federal program data systems supporting infants, toddlers, and young children and their families. The commenters also noted that the strategy would restrict the Center's ability to offer comprehensive support to States. One commenter suggested postponing intensive TA on data utilization for Child Find processes until full funding could be secured, emphasizing the need for additional financial resources to develop the open-source electronic tool. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department agrees with the feedback provided by commenters regarding the necessity to align the scope and requirements of these priorities with the available funding for this project. We recognize the ongoing needs of States concerning the collection, reporting, analysis, and use of IDEA Part C and Part B preschool special education data. Consequently, any expansion of the scope and requirements for these priorities should align to the most pressing needs identified by States. To address the concerns raised by commenters, the Department is refining the scope and requirements of these priorities accordingly. Furthermore, we expect applicants to propose suitable timelines for implementing general, targeted, and intensive TA, taking into account the annual funding levels provided for this project. <E T="03">Changes:</E> The Department is adjusting the scope of these priorities and requirements to align with the funding available for this Center by eliminating the requirement for an open-source tool and narrowing the scope of TA associated with data integration to primarily focus on the sharing, linking, or integrating of IDEA Part C early intervention and IDEA Part B preschool special education data. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Integrating Early Childhood Data Systems</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Two commenters expressed approval for incorporating an open-source electronic tool to aid States in linking and integrating their Part C early intervention and Part B preschool special education data with other data/data systems associated with other Federal programs that support infants, toddlers, and young children and their families. However, several commenters voiced concerns regarding the inclusion of this requirement in Priority 1. They pointed out that creating such a tool would demand significant project resources and a substantial commitment of State staff, which may currently be unfeasible. Moreover, one commenter provided evidence suggesting that this tool is not a top priority for State staff compared to other aspects of these priorities. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department appreciates the feedback provided on the open-source electronic tool to assist States in linking and integrating their Part C early intervention and Part B preschool special education data with other data/data sys ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 60k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━