[Federal Register: March 9, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 46)]
[Notices]
[Page 10729-10731]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr09mr07-65]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Magnet Schools Assistance Program
AGENCY: Office of Innovation and Improvement, Department of Education.
ACTION: Notice of final priority.
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SUMMARY: The Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement
announces a priority under the Magnet Schools Assistance Program
(MSAP). The Assistant Deputy Secretary may use this priority for
competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2007 and later years. We intend this
priority to encourage eligible applicants to focus on expanding their
capacity to provide public school choice by using magnet schools to
provide public school choice options to parents whose children attend
schools that have been identified for school improvement, corrective
action, or restructuring under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965, as amended (ESEA).
DATES: Effective Date: This priority is effective April 9, 2007.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Steven L. Brockhouse, U.S. Department
of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., room 4W229, Washington, DC
20202-5970. Telephone: (202) 260-2476 or via Internet:
steve.brockhouse@ed.gov.
If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD), you may
call the Federal Relay Service (FRS) at 1-800-877-8339.
Individuals with disabilities may obtain this document in an
alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, or computer
diskette) on request to the contact person listed under FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The MSAP provides grants to eligible local
educational agencies (LEAs) and consortia of LEAs to support magnet
schools that are part of an approved desegregation plan. For the
purpose of the MSAP, a magnet school is a public elementary school,
public secondary school, public elementary education center, or public
secondary education center that offers a special curriculum capable of
attracting substantial numbers of students of different racial
backgrounds.
Through the implementation of magnet schools, MSAP resources
support objectives and activities that enable all elementary and
secondary students to achieve to high standards, hold schools and LEAs
accountable for ensuring they do so, and help schools and LEAs develop
and design innovative educational methods and practices that support
desegregation efforts to eliminate, reduce, or prevent minority group
isolation and increase choices in public elementary and secondary
schools.
Consistent with the statutory purpose of the MSAP, magnet schools
are designed to eliminate, reduce, or prevent minority group isolation
in schools with substantial numbers or percentages of minority group
students, bring students of different backgrounds together, assist LEAs
in achieving systemic reforms, provide all students the opportunity to
meet challenging State content standards and challenging State
performance standards, and increase choices in public elementary and
secondary schools.
The priority, Expanding Capacity to Provide Choice, provides
eligible LEAs with an opportunity to continue to use magnet schools,
consistent with their desegregation plan objectives for the
elimination, reduction, or prevention of
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minority group isolation, to expand their capacity to provide public
school choice to parents whose children attend schools identified for
school improvement, corrective action, or restructuring.
The priority provides eligible applicants the flexibility to use
either or both of two approaches to expanding their capacity to provide
public school choice.
First, an eligible applicant could convert one or more schools
identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring under
Title I to magnet schools in order to improve the quality of teaching
and instruction in these schools. Using this approach, conversion of a
school to a magnet school would benefit students already attending the
school by offering a magnet curriculum that would include subject
matter or teaching methodology that is generally not available at other
schools in the LEA and would be more challenging and innovative than
the curricular program that the school had previously provided. The
implementation of the magnet curriculum, along with resources such as
equipment, supplies and staff development to support the implementation
of the magnet curriculum, would also help the school reduce, eliminate,
or prevent minority group isolation at the magnet school and/or at the
sending schools by attracting other students, including higher-
achieving students of different backgrounds, based on their interest in
a curricular program that would not be available to them in the schools
that they would otherwise attend.
Second, an eligible applicant could use higher-performing schools
as magnet schools and, by doing so, significantly increase the
opportunity for students attending schools identified for school
improvement, corrective action, or restructuring to participate in
public school choice by attending a higher-performing school. Using
this approach, an eligible applicant would need to ensure that the
magnet school would have sufficient space available to accommodate
students who would likely be interested in transferring from schools
identified for school improvement, corrective action, or restructuring.
Additionally, the LEA would need to show how the enrollment of the
magnet and/or sending schools (i.e., the schools identified for school
improvement, corrective action, or restructuring from which students
would transfer) would change in a manner that resulted in the
elimination, reduction, or prevention of minority group isolation in
those sending schools.
Under either approach, an applicant would be required to show how
it would effectively inform parents whose children attend schools
identified for school improvement, corrective action, or restructuring
about the new choices made available to them in the magnet schools to
be funded under the project.
We published a notice of proposed priority for this program in the
Federal Register on April 12, 2006 (71 FR 18728).
There are no differences between the notice of proposed priority
and this notice of final priority.
Public Comment
In the notice of proposed priority, we invited comments on the
proposed priority. We did not receive any comments.
Note: This notice does not solicit applications. In any year in
which we choose to use this priority, we invite applications through
a notice in the Federal Register. When inviting applications we
designate the priority as absolute, competitive preference, or
invitational. The effect of each type of priority follows:
Absolute priority: Under an absolute priority we consider only
applications that meet the priority (34 CFR 75.105(c)(3)).
Competitive preference priority: Under a competitive preference
priority we give competitive preference to an application by either
(1) awarding additional points, depending on how well or the extent
to which the application meets the competitive preference priority
(34 CFR 75.105(c)(2)(i)); or (2) selecting an application that meets
the competitive preference priority over an application of
comparable merit that does not meet the priority (34 CFR
75.105(c)(2)(ii)).
Invitational priority: Under an invitational priority we are
particularly interested in applications that meet the invitational
priority. However, we do not give an application that meets the
invitational priority a competitive or absolute preference over
other applications (34 CFR 75.105(c)(1)).
Priority
Expanding Capacity To Provide Choice
This priority supports projects that will--
(1) Help parents whose children attend low-performing schools (that
is, schools that have been identified for school improvement,
corrective action, or restructuring under Title I of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended) by--
(a) Selecting schools identified for school improvement, corrective
action, or restructuring under Title I as magnet schools to be funded
under this project and improving the quality of teaching and
instruction in these schools; or
(b) Maximizing the opportunity for students in low-performing
schools to attend higher-performing magnet schools funded under the
project and thereby reduce minority group isolation in the low-
performing sending schools; and
(2) Effectively inform parents whose children attend low-performing
schools about choices that are available to them in the magnet schools
to be funded under the project.
Note: For the purpose of selecting applications under this
priority, school improvement has the meaning given in 34 CFR
200.32(a)(1), corrective action has the meaning given in 34 CFR
200.33(a), and restructuring has the meaning given in 34 CFR
200.34(a).
Executive Order 12866
This notice of final priority has been reviewed in accordance with
Executive Order 12866. Under the terms of the order, we have assessed
the potential costs and benefits of this regulatory action.
The potential costs associated with the notice of final priority
are those resulting from statutory requirements and those we have
determined as necessary for administering this program effectively and
efficiently.
In assessing the potential costs and benefits--both quantitative
and qualitative--of this notice of final priority, we have determined
that the benefits of the final priority justify the costs.
We have also determined that this regulatory action does not unduly
interfere with State, local, and tribal governments in the exercise of
their governmental functions.
Summary of potential costs and benefits: The potential cost
associated with this final priority is minimal while the benefits are
significant.
The benefit of the final priority is that it will help applicants
prepare high-quality proposals that expand their capacity to provide
public school choice to parents whose children attend schools that have
not made adequate yearly progress.
Intergovernmental Review
This program is subject to Executive Order 12372 and the
regulations in 34 CFR part 79. One of the objectives of the Executive
order is to foster an intergovernmental partnership and a strengthened
federalism. The Executive order relies on processes developed by State
and local governments for coordination and review of proposed Federal
financial assistance.
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This document provides early notification of our specific plans and
actions for this program.
Applicable Program Regulations: 34 CFR part 280.
Electronic Access to This Document
You may view this document, as well as all other Department of
Education documents published in the Federal Register, in text or Adobe
Portable Document Format (PDF) on the Internet at the following site:
http://www.ed.gov/news/fedregister.
To use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available
free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S.
Government Printing Office (GPO), toll free, at 1-888-293-6498; or in
the Washington, DC, area at (202) 512-1530.
You may also view this document in text or PDF at the following
site: http://www.ed.gov/programs/magnet/applicant.html.
Note: The official version of this document is the document
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the
official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal
Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/index.html
.
(Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number 84.165A Magnet
Schools Assistance Program)
Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 7231-7231j.
Dated: March 6, 2007.
Morgan S. Brown,
Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement.
[FR Doc. E7-4272 Filed 3-8-07; 8:45 am]
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