OMB Memo

TO: Bridget Dooling

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Office of Management and Budget

THROUGH: Alan Schiff

Chief of Staff

Higher Education Programs

FROM: Lynn B. Mahaffie

Director

Teacher and Student Development Programs Service

SUBJECT: Request for Approval for the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants Program Scholarship Forms (OMB Control No. 1840-0753)

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this memorandum is to request approval for three Teacher Quality Enhancement (TQE) Grants Program scholarship forms -- the TQE Scholarship Terms and Conditions, the Addendum to the TQE Scholarship Terms and Conditions, and the TQE Verification of Teaching Obligation.

Currently, the Scholarship Terms and Condition Form and its Addendum are used by those TQE grantees that award scholarships and must enter into contracts with students in accordance with the TQE program regulations governing those awards. The scholarship students must then use the Verification of Teaching Obligation Form to verify fulfillment of the teaching obligation that is a condition of receiving the scholarship. These forms are the sole means of documenting the scholarship activities of this program. For grantee and student convenience, these forms are posted on TQE’s Web site. These forms document students’ obligations with respect to TQE scholarships and provide information for the program’s debt collection effort. If these forms are not approved, TQE will have no means of implementing the statutory and regulatory requirements that relate to the award of TQE scholarships.

BACKGROUND

Please refer to the memo on the previous clearance package for an extensive history and background as the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) continues to comply with OMB’s request to collect these forms electronically. Wew describe our significant progress below.

PROGRESS

OPE and our contractor (CBMI) met repeatedly in January and February 2007 to discuss the requirements for the web-enabled Title II Scholarship Administration and Reporting System (TSAR).   The goal of the new application is to automate the existing manual paper submission process by providing online submission capability for contracts and addenda, which automatically saves the data entered by the institution to a backend database.  A secondary goal of the application is to provide a platform to run standard reports on the data recorded in the system.  The TSAR System was developed with these tasks in mind.   

 

OPE began by converting the existing Access database which TQE currently uses to provide a web-based application that will interact with the TQE database and automate the scholarship recipient information collection process.  In March 2007, our contractor unveiled the prototype to a select group of TQE grantees.   Based on the comments and requirements outlined by TQE staff, OPE authorized CBMI to proceed with the development of the application. 

 

In July 2007, CBMI provided OPE with a beta version for testing.   OPE conducted a training/test session with the users in September 2007, during which time the TQE staff provided additional enhancement requests.  We gave approval to proceed with the enhancements in November 2007.   Because the TSAR application will reside on the Department of Education’s network, we will need all departmental approvals before implementation. OPE is currently going through the final stages of internal approval, which includes four TRB (Technical Review Board) approvals, and a total Certification and Accreditation or C & A. We have just completed the Planning and Requirements reviews and will proceed to the Design and Implementation TRB reviews. After all approvals have been met, we will implement the e-authorized website, which will go live, collecting and tracking all information electronically by spring of 2008.

Attachments:

ICR Part I

ICR Part II

Supporting Statement

Scholarship Terms and Conditions

Scholarship Terms and Conditions Addendum

Verification of Teaching Obligation

TQE Program Statute

TQE Regulations

October 15, 2007 Notice of Office of Management and Budget Action

Information Collection Clearance Chronology

Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission

Federal Register, vol. 65, No. 196 (October 10, 2000), pg. 60172

“Teacher Quality Recruitment Scholarship System (18-12-06)”