The US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has been administering the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) since 1968. The CRDC collects data from K-12 local education agencies on leading civil rights indicators related to access and barriers to educational opportunity. Nearly all public local education agencies (LEAs) in the 50 states, including Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are required to participate in the CRDC under section 203(c)(1) of the Department of Education Organization Act (20 U.S.C. 3413(c)(1)). Beginning with the 2011-12 CRDC, the collection has been universe in the 50 states, including Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. LEAs report information to the CRDC on both their agency and on each individual school. In addition to what most would consider regular public schools, the CRDC includes information on juvenile justice facilities, charter schools, alternative schools, and schools serving only students with disabilities.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and OCR began a formal partnership in 2012 to evaluate the collection process and improve the data submitted for the CRDC. In an effort to better understand how LEAs collect, store and report data to the CRDC, NCES organized and ran a series of 15 site visits and 20 cognitive interviews. The feedback gathered in this process led to the redesign of CRDC school and LEA forms for the 2013-14 CRDC and the development of a new collection tool. Since starting this formal partnership, NCES has worked to evaluate the CRDC collection process, make recommendations on process and data collection improvements, run topical analysis of submitted data and explore ways that innovations such as machine learning might be incorporated into the CRDC collection system.

The purpose of the CRDC is to obtain data authorized under the statutes and regulations implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and under the Department of Education Organization Act (20 U.S.C. § 3413). The Department collects data that are necessary to ensure compliance with civil rights laws within its jurisdiction. In order to do this, the CRDC collects a variety of information, including student enrollment and educational programs and services data that are disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, English learner (EL), and disability. The CRDC is a longstanding and important aspect of ED's Office for Civil Rights overall strategy for administering and enforcing the civil rights statutes for which it is responsible. This information is also used by other ED offices as well as policymakers and researchers outside of ED.