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4. Data Quality—Data Formatting Issues

The U.S. Census Bureau developed a web-based submission system that allowed states to submit data in a variety of file format types. State Teacher Compensation Survey (TCS) coordinators were asked to submit their data files with variables in a particular order, and using specified values, such as "1" for "male" and "2" for "female" in the "sex" variable field.

If states were not able to comply with these requests, Census Bureau staff worked with state TCS coordinators to transform the data to National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) specifications and develop methods that would enable the state to transform the data before submitting files for future data collections. States were receptive to suggestions, and among the seven states that participated in both the school year (SY) 2005–06 and SY 2006–07 data collections, less follow-up was needed in the second year. These states also indicated that the remaining formatting problems (such as matching teacher records with schools or being able to indicate which teachers work at multiple schools) should be resolved by the time of the SY 2007–08 data collection.

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