President Obama’s 2017 Budget Provides Increases for the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and National Science Foundation

On February 9, President Obama submitted his Budget for Fiscal Year 2017 to Congress, providing investments to continue building on the Administration’s work in key programs within the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and National Science Foundation.

For the Department of Education, the President requests $69.4 billion in discretionary funding, an increase of $1.3 billion (or 2%) over the Fiscal Year 2016 level, and approximately $139.7 billion in new mandatory funding. The budget supports the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which embraces many of the reforms the Administration has long supported to improve outcomes for all students. Key areas of investment include increasing equity and excellence, using evidence and data for advancing equity, and providing support for teachers and school leaders.

For the Department of Health and Human Services, the President requests $82.8 billion in discretionary funding as well as new mandatory investments to expand mental health services, research, and development. Key areas of investment include keeping people safe and healthy, particularly those at key stages of life.

For the National Science Foundation, the President requests $7.96 billion, of which $7.56 billion is discretionary funding and $400 million is new mandatory funding. The budget provides a total of $1.2 billion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education activities. Key areas of investment include developing a highly talented workforce through all phases of education, from Pre-K through doctorate and beyond.

Key Department of Education investments in the President’s budget include the following:

Increasing Equity and Excellence

  • $15.4 billion for Title I grants to school districts — the cornerstone of federal efforts to ensure all students, including poor and minority students, English learners, and students with disabilities, graduate from high school prepared for college and careers.
  • A commitment to early learning as a path to opportunity anchored by the President’s Preschool for All proposal, which would provide mandatory funding for universal, high-quality preschool programs for all four-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families, as well as a total increase of $80 million for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) preschool grants and grants for infants and families and an increase of $100 million for the Preschool Development Grants program in the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget.
  • $4 billion in mandatory funding for a new Computer Science for All initiative, which would support state efforts to expand access for all students to computer science instruction and programs of study, as well as $100 million in discretionary funding for grants to districts to promote innovative strategies to provide high-quality instruction and other learning opportunities in computer science.
  • $120 million for new Stronger Together Grants, which would encourage the development of ambitious, innovative plans to increase socioeconomic diversity through voluntary, community-supported strategies and expand on existing efforts in states and communities.
  • $138 million for more vigorous enforcement of the nation’s civil rights laws by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, ensuring equal access to education.

Using Evidence and Data for Advancing Equity

  • $180 million for the Education Innovation and Research program, an increase of $60 million — or 50% — for the successor to the Investing in Innovation (i3) program to expand support for evidence-based initiatives that develop, validate, or scale up effective education interventions.
  • $100 million for the First in the World program to develop, validate, or scale up innovative strategies to improve postsecondary completion rates for high-need students, as well as test these strategies when implemented in varied settings and contexts.
  • A total of $15 million for InformED, which would build on the success of the College Scorecard by making the Department’s data and research across the education spectrum more available and actionable for internal users and the public.

Providing Support for Teachers and School Leaders

  • A new RESPECT: Best Job in the World program — a $1 billion mandatory investment to support a nationwide effort to attract and retain effective teachers in high-need schools by increasing compensation and paths for advancement, implementing teacher-led development opportunities to improve instruction, and creating working conditions and climates conducive to student success.
  • $125 million for a proposed Teacher and Principals Pathways program for grants to institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations, working closely with districts, to create or expand high-quality pathways into teaching, particularly into high-need schools and high-need subjects such as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
  • $10 million for Teach to Lead grants to support the promising work at the Teach to Lead Summits with direct support to teachers who develop innovative reforms with the potential for wider impact on improving student outcomes.

Key Department of Health and Human Services investments in the President’s budget include the following:

Keeping People Safe and Healthy

The President’s budget makes robust investments in the safety and health of all Americans, particularly those at key stages of life as follows:

  • Increasing access to early intervention mental and behavioral health programs and expanding mental health treatment. The budget proposes a two-year initiative to expand access to mental health services financed with $500 million in new mandatory funding. (See Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMHSA press release.)
  • Maintaining historic investments in Head Start and increasing the number of children attending programs of longer duration. The FY 2017 budget includes $9.6 billion for Head Start, an increase of $434 million over FY 2016. This level includes the resources necessary to maintain enrollment in the program, including the Administration’s historic expansion of Early Head Start and recent investments in Early Head Start-Care Partnerships. In addition, the budget continues to support high-quality services in Head Start with an additional $292 million above FY 2016 to increase the number of children attending Head Start for a full school day and a full school year, which is necessary to ensure that children receive services that are of the highest quality and help meet the needs of working parents.
  • Making landmark investments in child care by increasing the number of children served, investing in the quality of the child care workforce, and implementing new health and safety requirements. (See the Administration for Children & Families press release.) The budget continues the historic proposal that provides $82 billion over 10 years in additional mandatory funds for child care. This investment will increase the number of children served to a total of 2.6 million children and guarantee that low-and moderate-income working families can access high-quality child care, so that all young children are safe and ready to learn. This landmark proposal also makes significant investments in raising the quality of child care, including investments to improve the skills, competencies, and training of the child care workforce, and a higher subsidy rate for higher quality care. This additional funding also includes $40 million for pilots that will test and evaluate strategies for addressing the child care needs of working families, especially families working non-traditional hours or in rural areas.
  • Laying the groundwork for Universal Preschool. The budget provides $350 million for the Preschool Development Grants program — an initiative jointly administered by the Departments of Health and Human Services and Education.
  • Understanding the brain. The budget provides $195 million within NIH, $45 million more than FY2016, for the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. NIH is pushing the boundaries of neuroscience through the BRAIN Initiative to reveal how patterns of neural activity actually translate into emotion, thought, and memory. This research has the potential to discover underlying pathologies in a vast array of brain disorders and provide new avenues to treat, cure, and even prevent common conditions. In FY 2017, the increased funds will continue to support basic neuroscience research, human neuroscience, neuroimaging, and training initiatives, as well as potential projects to collaborate with industry to test novel devices in the human brain, new ways to address big data from the brain, and develop devices for mapping and tuning brain circuitry.

Key National Science Foundation investments in the President’s budget include the following:

Developing a Highly Talented Workforce through All Phases of Education
NSF funds activities that support students, teachers, researchers, and the public, as well as education research that is critical to building the nation’s knowledge base for improving learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The budget provides a total of $1.2 billion for STEM education activities including the following:

  • Computer Science for All, which will accelerate NSF’s ongoing efforts to enable rigorous and engaging computer science education in schools across the nation.
  • Improving Undergraduate STEM Education to accelerate the quality and effectiveness of undergraduate education in all STEM fields by using research on STEM learning to address crosscutting challenges and discipline-specific issues.
  • NSF Research Traineeships that identify priority research themes that both align with NSF initiatives and have strong potential for the development and testing of innovative practices in graduate education.
  • Graduate Research Fellowships that recognize students with high potential in STEM research and innovation and provide support for them to pursue multidisciplinary research.
  • Advancing Informal STEM Learning that provides design, implementation, and testing of new approaches to STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments; the creation of multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; and research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments.

For more information among the helpful resources online are a press release and the budget summary.

To view a list of fact sheets for each government agency see: The President’s Budget: Agency Fact Sheets.

NCER Announces Summer Workshops

The IES National Center for Education Research (NCER) is accepting applications for its 10th summer research training institute on cluster-randomized trials, July 18-28, 2016. Applications are due by April 18, 2016. Also, NCER is offering a new two-week training workshop on quasi-experimental research design and analysis, August 1-12, 2016. Applications are due by April 20, 2016. Both workshops will be held at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

  • The training institute on cluster-randomized trials is designed to increase the capacity of researchers to develop and conduct rigorous evaluations of the impacts that education interventions have on student outcomes.

Dates: July 18 – 28, 2016
Location: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Application Deadline: April 18, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. ET.

Application materials should be submitted online at:
http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/workshops/annual-summer-workshops/cluster-randomized-trials/apply/

Applicants will be notified of placement by May 6, 2016, via e-mail.

If you have questions about the training institute on cluster-randomized trials, please contact Valerie Lyne at v-lyne@northwestern.edu.

If you have questions about the IES grant supporting this training (R305B130023), please contact Dr. Phill Gagné.

  • The training workshop on quasi-experimental research design and analysis will explore state-of-the-art quasi-experimental methods for evaluating education interventions. Participants will conduct hands-on analyses of data collected from quasi-experimental designs. Participants in prior quasi-experimental workshops that did not include hands-on training are encouraged to apply. The format will consist of lectures, small group discussions, individual consultations, and small-group practical exercises.

Dates: August 1 – 12, 2016
Location: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Application Deadline: April 20, 2016

More information on the application process is available at the Institute for Policy Research web site.
Applicants will be notified of placement by May 2, 2016.

If you have questions about the about the quasi-experimental design and analysis workshop, please contact Rebecca Morris at rebecca.morris@northwestern.edu.

If you have questions about the IES grant supporting this training (R305B140029), please contact Dr. Phill Gagné.

NAEP Offers Technical Documentation Online

The IES National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is offering technical documentation on the web (TDW).

TDW contains information about technical procedures and methods and is organized by topic and subtopics, including information specific to particular NAEP assessments.

TDW is written for researchers and assumes knowledge of educational measurement and testing. Each page has a link for previewing a printer-friendly version, if you wish to print. The site also has a search feature.

To view all TDW contents currently available in a single display, click on the Table of Contents link on the NAEP webpage: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/tdw/.

A DSP Reminder: Carryover of Unobligated Balances

What is a Carryover? Carryover is forwarding the unobligated balance of funds from the current budget period that has expired to the next budget period. There are two types of Carryover:

  1. Automatic Carryover

Most federal and nonfederal grant awards are subject to automatic carryover of unobligated balances from one budget period to the next budget period.

  • For those awards that allow automatic carryover the UF project number or numbers established for spending the awarded funds will remain the same for the life of the project.

Note:  Many grant progress reports, for example the NIH RPPR progress reports, require reporting  estimated unobligated balance that are expected to be greater than 25 percent of the current year’s budget and if yes, an explanation and expenditure plan for those funds will need to be included in the progress report.

  1. Restricted Carryover (Requires Sponsor Approval)
  • For those awards that do not allow carryover of unobligated funds from one budget period to the next without sponsor prior approval requires each budget period to be separately accounted for by establishing a new project number or numbers for each funding increment.

Note:  Establishment of a new project numbers each year allows C&G Accounting to issue a financial report which identifies expenditures and determines the unobligated balance that will require sponsor approval to carryover.

  1. Project balances are available in myinvestiGator
  • To determine a project’s unobligated balance you should use myinvestiGator or contact your Grant Accountant in C&G Accounting.
  1. Procedures for Requesting Sponsor Approval to Carryover Unobligated Balances
  • C&G Accounting notifies the Departments of the unobligated balance available for carryover. Departments should also contact and consult with their assigned C&G Grant Accountant to confirm the unobligated balance.
  • Department or PI should then prepare a formal letter requesting carryover approval signed by the PI and countersigned by DSP.  A Carryover Request Template letter is available on the DSP Forms website.
  • A complete carryover request should include the following information:
  1. PI Name
  2. Grant Number
  3. Carryover dates or years (from/to)
  4. Amount of the unobligated balance to be carried over broken out between Direct and F&A = Total Cost
  5. Reason for the unobligated balance
  6. Reason the carryover funds are needed to accomplish the grant work and why the grant work could not be accomplished by rebudgeting current budget period funds.
  7. Attachments as follows:
    • Detailed total cost budget for the unobligated amount. A total cost budget includes direct costs plus indirects at the F&A rate in effect for the current budget period. For NIH use the 2590 detailed budget forms and the checklist page reflecting the requested F&A rate and F&A amount.
    • Budgetary and scientific justifications.
    • A copy of the grant’s annual financial report issued by C&G Accounting. For federal awards this is known as the Federal Financial Report (FFR). If the financial report has not be not been completed, DSP will need to confirm the unobligated balance with C&G Accounting prior to submitting the carryover request to the Sponsor.
  • DSP will review, sign as the authorized business official and deliver to the sponsor.
  • Upon sponsor’s approval, DSP will issue the NOA adding the approved carryover amount to the project established for the current budget period, taking into account any sponsor restrictions that may require a separate project be established for the carryover funds.

Questions: If you have questions regarding carryover of unobligated funds from one budget period to the next please contact your assigned C&G Grant Accountant or DSP at ufawards@ufl.edu.

Office of Research NCURA Workshop Update

Due to an overwhelming demand for the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) Departmental Research Administrators Workshop, the second session in May has already been filled. The Division of Sponsored Programs and Contracts & Grants Accounting offices are working with NCURA to schedule a third session this fall.

Please submit your interest for tentative dates of November 16-18, 2016 by filling out the form at:

http://research.ufl.edu/or/research-events/ncura-spring-workshop-survey.html

Note: Those who have expressed interest and are on the waiting list from the February DO NOT need to complete this form.

If you are uncertain if you are on the list, please email Allie Goodrich at alliegoodrich@ufl.edu.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Tiffany Schmidt at tcasi@ufl.edu.

Awarded Projects for February 2016

College of Education
Awarded Projects
February 2016
Principal Investigator: Lynda Hayes (P.K. Yonge)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: Florida Department of Education
Project Title: Florida’s Best and Brightest Teacher Scholarship Program
Project Period: 7/1/2015 – 6/30/2016
Award Amount: $140,356.59
Principal Investigator: Philip Poekert (Lastinger Center for Learning)
Co-PI: Raquel Diaz (STL)
Funding Agency: Bright From the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning
Project Title: Georgia DECAL – TA
Project Period: 1/1/2016 – 12/31/2016
Award Amount: $135,568
Principal Investigator: Philip Poekert (Lastinger Center for Learning)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: Children’s Trust of Miami
Project Title: Contract Manager Leadership Program
Project Period: 12/1/2015 – 11/30/2016
Award Amount: $50,600
Principal Investigator: Michelina MacDonald (P.K. Yonge)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: Lowe’s
Project Title: PKY Community Garden Renewal and Expansion
Project Period: 1/1/2016 – 12/31/2016
Award Amount: $4,800
Principal Investigator: Ashley MacSuga-Gage (SSESPECS)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: University of South Florida (Subcontract: FLDOE Flow-Through)
Project Title: University of South Florida’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (FLPBIS) Project School Climate Grant Partner
Project Period: 9/1/2015 – 8/31/2016
Award Amount: $53,745
Principal Investigator: Isaac McFarlin (SHDOSE)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: University of Michigan (Subcontract: IES Flow-Through)
Project Title: Causes and Consequences of Public Subsidies in Higher Education: Evidence from Community College Districts
Project Period: 1/1/2016 – 6/30/2016
Award Amount: $134,997
Principal Investigator: M. David Miller (SHDOSE)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: US Department of Veterans Affairs
Project Title: IPA for David Miller
Project Period: 2/1/2016 – 1/31/2018
Award Amount: $25,507.97
Principal Investigator: Thomas Dana (Administration Dean’s Area)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: Bruno White Entertainment
Project Title: Science Education Online Distance Learning Course
Project Period: 1/1/2016 – 12/31/2016
Award Amount: $263,133
Principal Investigator: Philip Poekert (Lastinger Center for Learning)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: Promethean, Inc.
Project Title: Promethean/UF Turnaround School Leaders Program
Project Period: 3/1/2016 – 6/30/2016
Award Amount: $36,999
Principal Investigator: Joni Splett (SSESPECS)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: University of South Carolina (Subcontract: US DOJ Flow-Through)
Project Title: Interconnecting PBIS and School Mental Health to Improve School Safety: A Randomized Trial
Project Period: 1/1/2016 – 12/31/2019
Award Amount: $630,338

Submitted Projects for February 2016

College of Education
Submitted Projects
February 2016
Principal Investigator: Maria Coady (STL)
Co-PI: Candace Harper (STL), Ester de Jong (STL)
Funding Agency: US Department of Education/OELA
Proposal Title: Project STELLAR: Supporting Teachers of English Language Learners Across Rural Settings
Requested Amount: $2,393,911
Principal Investigator: Thomas Dana (Administration Dean’s Area)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: Bruno White Entertainment
Proposal Title: Science Education Online Distance Learning Course
Requested Amount: $263,133
Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Klinepeter (SSESPECS)
Co-PI: Tina Smith-Bonahue (SSESPECS)
Funding Agency: Organization for Autism Research
Proposal Title: Family-Provider Partnerships in Service Delivery for School-Age Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Requested Amount: $1,999
Principal Investigator: Aki Murata (STL)
Co-PI: N/A
Funding Agency: Florida State University (Subcontract: NSF Flow-Through)
Proposal Title: Identifying an Effective and Scalable Model of Lesson Study
Requested Amount: $15,696
Principal Investigator: Philip Poekert (Lastinger Center for Learning)
Co-PI: Donald Pemberton (Lastinger Center for Learning)
Funding Agency: US Department of Defense/DARPA
Proposal Title: Systemwide K-12 Literacy Professional Learning and Literacy Model Units
Requested Amount: $1,823,004