National Forum on Education Statistics - Free Publications

Free Publications - Best Practices

The National Forum on Education Statistics develops free resources on a variety of issues that affect schools, school districts, and state education agencies. Each publication is based on extensive, objective research and the collective experience and expertise of a wide variety of education professionals. Past publications are reviewed and updated periodically to keep up with changes in a dynamic educational system.

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Best Practices

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Best Practices

Forum Guide to Planning for, Collecting, and Managing Data About Students Displaced by a Crisis This publication is designed to help provide timely and useful best practice information for collecting and managing data about students who have temporarily or permanently enrolled in another educational setting because of a crisis. This resource updates the information included in the 2010 publication Crisis Data Management: A Forum Guide to Collecting and Managing Data about Displaced Students; highlights best practices that education agencies can adopt before, during, and after a crisis; and features case studies and real-world examples from agencies that have either experienced a crisis or received students who were displaced by a crisis.
PDF (14.0 MB)

Forum Guide to Early Warning Systems This publication is designed to help state and local education agency staff education agencies plan, develop, implement, and use an early warning system in their agency. This publication includes a review of early warning systems; best practice suggestions for system planning, development, implementation, and use; and seven case studies.
PDF (2.6 MB)

Forum Guide to Reporting Civil Rights Data This publication is designed to help local education agency staff report civil rights data to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. This publication includes an overview of the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in reporting civil rights data, an explanation of the CRDC reporting process, and six case studies.
PDF (5.4 MB)

Forum Guide to Collecting and Using Attendance Data This publication is designed to help state and local education agency staff improve their collection, reporting, and use of attendance data to improve student and school outcomes. This publication includes best practice suggestions and real-life examples, provides a set of voluntary attendance codes, and features tip sheets for a wide range of education agency staff.
PDF (4.3 MB)

Forum Guide to Data Visualization: A Resource for Education Agencies The purpose of this publication is to recommend data visualization practices that will help education agencies communicate data meaning in visual formats that are accessible, accurate, and actionable for a wide range of education stakeholders. Although this resource is designed for staff in education agencies, many of the visualization principles apply to other fields as well.
PDF (13 MB)

Forum Guide to Collecting and Using Disaggregated Data on Racial/Ethnic Subgroups This publication is intended to identify some of the overarching benefits and challenges involved in data disaggregation; recommend appropriate practices for disaggregating racial/ethnic data in districts and states; and describe real–world examples of large and small education agencies disaggregating racial/ethnic data successfully.
PDF (2 MB)

Forum Guide to Education Data Privacy This publication presents 11 case studies designed to assist schools and education agencies in protecting the confidentiality of student data when using online instructional apps, responding to requests for student contact information, sharing student data within schools, sharing data among community school partners, using student data in presentations and training materials, and using social media.
PDF (5 MB)

Forum Guide to Elementary/Secondary Virtual Education Data This publication provides information on the impact of virtual education on established data elements and methods of data collection and addresses the scope of changes, the rapid pace of new technology development, and the proliferation of resources in virtual education.
PDF (6.60 MB)

Forum Guide to Alternative Measures of Socioeconomic Status in Education Data Systems This publication provides “encyclopedia-type” entries for eight plausible alternative measures of socioeconomic status (SES) and, as such, will help readers better understand the implications of collecting and interpreting a range of SES-related data in education agencies.
PDF (6.15 MB)

Forum Guide to College and Career Ready Data This publication outlines the data needs and helpful analytics for five use cases (individual learning plans, educator support systems, postsecondary feedback loops, accountability systems, and career technical and education programs) that support SEA and LEA college and career ready initiatives.
PDF (6.68 MB)

Forum Guide to Supporting Data Access for Researchers: A Local Education Agency Perspective This publication recommends a set of core practices, operations, and templates that can be adopted and adapted by LEAs as they consider how to respond to requests for both new and existing data about the education enterprise.
PDF (2.20 MB)

Forum Guide to the Teacher-Student Data Link: A Technical Implementation Resource This guide introduces the teacher-student data link (TSDL) and provides information on TSDL components, use cases, and strategies for overcoming implementation challenges.
PDF (8.31 MB)

Forum Guide to Taking Action with Education Data This Guide provides practical information about the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to identify, access, interpret, and use data to improve instruction in classrooms and the operation of schools, local education agencies, and state education agencies.
PDF (3.3 MB)


Forum Guide to Supporting Data Access for Researchers: A State Education Agency Perspective This Guide recommends a set of core practices, operations, and templates that can be adopted and adapted by state education agencies as they consider how to respond to requests for data about the education enterprise, including data maintained in longitudinal data systems.
PDF (2.2 MB)


Forum Guide to Facilities Information Management: A Resource for State and Local Education Agencies This Guide provides a framework for collecting, evaluating, and maintaining education facilities data. It includes best practices for the design, development, implementation, and use of facilities management information systems, along with a list of standard data elements.
PDF (10.6 MB)


Forum Guide to Ensuring Equal Access to Education Websites This resource guides education institutions in improving the accessibility of websites and other electronic information technology, and in complying with accessibility standards and laws.
PDF (1.8 MB)	Print Copy


Traveling Through Time: The Forum Guide to Longitudinal Data Systems, Book IV: Advanced LDS Usage This document, the final installment of a four-part Forum Guide series on longitudinal data systems (LDS), addresses issues important to the effective use of longitudinal data.
PDF (1.8 MB)	Print Copy


Forum Guide to Crime, Violence, and Discipline Incident Data The Forum Guide to Crime, Violence, and Discipline Incident Data focuses on the use of crime, violence, and discipline data to improve school safety.
PDF (1.8 MB)	Print Copy


Traveling Through Time: The Forum Guide to Longitudinal Data Systems, Book III: Effectively Managing LDS Data This document, the third installment of a four-part Forum Guide series on longitudinal data systems (LDS), addresses the management of data.
PDF (4.5 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Traveling Through Time: The Forum Guide to Longitudinal Data Systems, Book II: Planning and Developing an LDS This document, the second installment of a four-part Forum Guide series on longitudinal data systems (LDS), discusses the critical planning and development phases of an LDS project.
PDF (1.9 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Traveling Through Time: The Forum Guide to Longitudinal Data Systems, Book I: What is an LDS? By facilitating the collection and use of detailed, high quality student- and staff-level data linked over time, longitudinal data systems (LDSs) hold promise for enhancing both the way education agencies use data to serve students and the way they do business, from the policy level to the school office and into the classroom.
PDF (6MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Forum Guide to Data Ethics Each and every day, educators collect and use data about students, staff, and schools. Some of these data originate in individual student and staff records that are confidential or otherwise sensitive.
PDF (1.6 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Crisis Data Management: A Forum Guide to Collecting and Managing Data About Displaced Students This document provides guidelines that can be used by elementary and secondary education agencies to establish policies and procedures for collecting and managing education data before, during, and after a crisis.
PDF (2.1 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Forum Guide to Metadata: The Meaning Behind Education Data This document offers best practice concepts, definitions, implementation strategies, and templates/tools for an audience of data, technology, and program staff in state and local education agencies.
PDF (2.4 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Managing an Identity Crisis: Forum Guide to Implementing New Federal Race and Ethnicity Categories This best-practice guide is developed to assist state and local education agencies in their implementation of the new federal race and ethnicity categories—thereby reducing redundant efforts within and across states, improving data comparability, and minimizing reporting burden.
PDF (6 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Forum Guide to Core Finance Data Elements This document provides an overview of key finance data terms. It also covers the 2 NCES public school finance surveys: the state-level National Public Education Financial Survey and the School District Finance Survey (or F-33).
PDF (2.4 MB)	Print Copy


Forum Curriculum for Improving Education Data: A Resource for Local Education Agencies This curriculum supports efforts to improve the quality of education data by serving as training materials for K12 school and district staff.
PDF (1 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Forum Guide to Decision Support Systems: A Resource for Educators This document was developed to remedy the lack of reliable, objective information available to the education community about decision support systems.
PDF (765 KB)	Print Copy


Forum Guide to the Privacy of Student Information: A Resource for Schools This guide helps school and local education agency staff to better understand and apply FERPA, a federal law that protects privacy interests of parents and students in student education records.
PDF (1.1 MB)	Print Copy	Browse


Accounting for Every Student: A Taxonomy for Standard Student Exit Codes This "best practice" guide presents an exhaustive and mutually exclusive exit code taxonomy that accounts, at any single point in time, for all students enrolled (or previously enrolled) in a particular school or district.
PDF (1 MB)	Print Copy


Forum Guide to Education Indicators The Forum Guide to Education Indicators provides encyclopedia-type entries for 44 commonly used education indicators. Each indicator entry contains a definition, recommended uses, usage caveats and cautions, related policy questions, data element components, a formula, commonly reported subgroups, and display suggestions.
PDF (1 MB)	Print Copy


Forum Unified Education Technology Suite The Forum Unified Education Technology Suite presents a practical, comprehensive, and tested approach to assessing, acquiring, instituting, managing, securing, and using technology in education settings.
Link	Print version not available


Forum Guide to Building a Culture of Quality Data: A School and District Resource There has been a growing awareness that effective teaching, efficient schools, and quality data are linked. A "Culture of Quality Data" is the belief that good data are an integral part of teaching, learning and managing the school enterprise.
PDF (1 MB)	Print Copy


Forum Guide to Protecting the Privacy of Student Information: State and Local Education Agencies This Guide presents a general overview of privacy laws and professional practices that apply to information collected for, and maintained in, student records.
PDF (700 KB)	Print version not available	Browse


Planning Guide for Maintaining School Facilities This Guide was prepared by members of the National Forum on Education Statistics to help school facilities managers plan for efficient and effective operations.
PDF (1.5 MB)	Print version not available	Browse


Safety in Numbers: Collecting and Using Crime, Violence, and Discipline Incident Data to Make a Difference in Schools This document is designed for use by school, district, and state staff to improve the effectiveness of their efforts to collect and use disciplinary incident data.
PDF (491 KB)	Print Copy	Browse


Privacy Issues in Education Staff Records This report discusses key concepts in protecting and managing information in staff records. It does not provide legal guidelines, but does address the federal Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts and offers principles of best practice.
PDF (390 KB)	Print version not available


Standards for Education Data Collection and Reporting (SEDCAR) This document describes education data collection and reporting standards through the combined efforts of data providers, producers, and users at the local, state, and federal levels.
PDF (7.5 MB)	Print version not available