Introduction to the elementary/secondary education data redesign project of the National Center for Education Statistics

Abstract

During 1985 the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, began a thorough review of its elementary and secondary education data collection programs. Emerson J. Elliott, Administrator of NCES, initiated the review to address questions of the suitability, scope, reliability, and timeliness of the Center’s statistical data in terms of the purposes those data are expected to serve-purposes relative to instructional and administrative needs, and to education policy issues. The intended product of the effort was the design of a new plan for national data collections from institutions and individuals to be implemented over a several year period. The Redesign Project was conceptually designed by Leslie J. Silverman, Project Director and Richard C. Taeuber, Project Co-Director as a dialogue to identify the data needs of the public and the education community at all levels of participation and governance. It was designed to be an open, public, continuing process to elicit and discuss ideas for the nature and the content of the national education data system. It was specifically not to be a voting or tabulation of preferences. The Redesign Project was designed to have five stages: Stage I: Solicit papers from data users and policy and programmatic organizations to provide the initial material for the ongoing dialogue. Stage II: Prepare a synthesis of the received papers to provide a succinct, organized reflection of the ideas, suggestions, and comments in the invited papers. Stage ZZZ. Prepare a conceptual plan(s) for a national data collection program to respond to a maximal subset of the suggestions for new and improved data. Together with the synthesis, this report would provide the basis for focusing the continuing discussion of data needs and system improvements. Stage IV: Coordinate a period of public comment featuring a nationwide series of discussions and/or regionai legislative-type hearings so that education practitioner and consumers of education data could assess how well the concerns of data users and providers had been addressed in the Synthesis and Alternatives Reports. Most importantly, this broadbased public dialogue would serve to foster a sense of participation within the education community, as well as the building of a constituency for the change fostered by the redesign of the national data system. Stage V: Design a specific operational national elementary and secondary education data collection program. The planning would be by NCES and Departmental staff, in cooperation with the States, as dominant participants. This new system would improve the delivery of needed information about public and private schools, teachers, and students to the public, policymakers, and the education community. Specific data items would, only at this final stage, be jointly identified by NCES staff and representatives of the constituencies the system would be designed to serve.