OCTAE Call for Peer Reviewers: Education Stabilization Fund – Reimagine Workforce Preparation Grants Program

The Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) will conduct an independent peer review for the following grant program:

Education Stabilization Fund – Reimagine Workforce Preparation Grants Program (ESF-RWP)

The purpose of the ESF-RWP Grants Program is to provide support to help states with the highest coronavirus burden create or expand short-term education and training opportunities and/or career pathways programs that help citizens return to work, become entrepreneurs, or expand their small businesses; or to enable states to create or expand small business incubators that offer education and training, mentorship, as well as shared facilities and resources that will help small businesses recover and grow and new entrepreneurs thrive.

In support of this competition, we now seek individuals who can participate in review panels that will help us to select grant award winners, to provide written analysis and scoring of submitted grant applications, and to provide constructive written feedback to applicants.

Who Would Be Successful Peer Reviewers of these Grant Applications?

• Persons who are workforce development specialists, community or technical college staff or administrators, adult education teachers or administrators, career and technical education professionals (postsecondary), entrepreneurship experts, researchers, evaluators, advocates, professional development providers, or other individuals who have significant and current workforce development experience.
• Persons who have human resources, administrative, project management, or some other leadership experience that helps them to bridge their understanding of what happens in industry and what it takes to implement, sustain, and grow new short-term training and educational programs that align to jobs.
• Persons who have wide-ranging experience, and who can discriminate across a variety of postsecondary, adult education, and workforce development areas to identify the ideas that are most promising versus those that are commonplace or less likely to be effective.
• Persons who have direct experience and expertise in the following areas:
  • Adult education and literacy
  • Career and technical education
  • Career pathways
  • Distance education
  • Entrepreneurship education
  • Industry sector-based education and training
  • Integrated education and training programs
  • Apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs
  • Small business development
  • Short-term educational programs
  • Work-based learning
  • Ability to benefit
  • Community and technical colleges
  • Business and industry engagement
  • Student support services
• Persons who are excellent writers, good critical thinkers, and committed to completing assigned tasks in a professional and timely manner.

Instructions to Apply to Become a Peer Reviewer

• To be considered, please send a copy of your resume (maximum of 5 pages) to ESF-RWP@ed.gov no later than July 23, 2020.

• If you are selected by OCTAE to participate, you must also register and submit your resume in G5 (www.g5.gov), though you can also do this step now. For support with this process, it is recommended that you consult these PowerPoint instructions (for another program, but the content is relevant). If you need additional help, you may contact the G5 helpdesk at edcaps.user@ed.gov or call 1-888-336-8930. G5 will require you to submit your resume in a PDF format only.
• When the G5 system prompts you for your areas of specialization, select all that are applicable to you, but please ensure you select each of the aforementioned content areas for which you have expertise: for example, “Career and Technical Education,” “Adult Education and Literacy,” etc.

Please note that submitting your resume and/or registering in G5 does not guarantee that you will be selected as a reviewer.

What to Include in Your Resume (maximum of 5 pages)

In addition to sharing highlights of your career history and your current experience working in the relevant areas above, please share the following (if applicable):

• Indicators of any relevant knowledge/experience in leading or overseeing program innovation, scaling of effective practices, and program dissemination.
• Indicators of any relevant experience working in rural areas, with minority-serving institutions (MSIs), or in Opportunity Zones.
• Indicators of experience successfully teaching or designing educational and training programs using distance learning.
• Current employment at a state agency or state workforce board.
• Whether you have previously been a Department of Education or Department of Labor peer reviewer, including serving as a peer reviewer for any OCTAE program; or whether you have served as a project director or staff person on another recent Department of Education grant.

Responsibilities/Payment

• The reviews will take place the week of August 27–September 3. If you are selected, you will be contacted to confirm availability for the specific dates.
• You will be expected:

1. To participate in an orientation webinar on August 27 in the afternoon (Eastern time);
2. To read, review, and evaluate 4–8 applications online;
3. To participate in approximately three or four panel discussion conference calls (each several hours in length);
4. To complete written evaluations of applications based on the selection criteria by the deadline; and
5. To make revisions of your reviews following the panel discussion.

All reviews will be submitted in the Department’s online G5 system.

Peer reviewers will be provided an honorarium of $1,000 upon successful completion of peer review duties.

Reviewer Selection

Reviewers who are selected to participate will be contacted by the OCTAE team or its contractor and asked for additional contact information, availability, and potential conflicts of interest. Those not selected may be referred to be a peer reviewer for a future competition.

Conflict of Interest

You are not eligible to be a reviewer if you will be applying to the competition or are employed by an applicant, if you will be involved in the preparation of a grant application, or if you would stand to benefit from an application that were to receive funding in this new competition. You may be eligible, however, if you are a current or past OCTAE grantee and are not submitting a new application under the competition.

Program Information

For more information about current OCTAE and ED programs, please visit https://cte.ed.gov/grants/funding-opportunities.

Please direct all questions to the ESF-RWP inbox at ESF-RWP@ed.gov.