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The NCES National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 Eighth-Graders (NELS:88) is the first nationally representative longitudinal study of eighth-grade students in public and private schools. NELS:88 is designed to provide longitudinal data about critical transitions experienced by young people as they develop, attend school, and embark on their careers.
This CD-ROM provides the public-use data from the NELS:88 base year (1988) through third follow-up (1994) in a format that is compatible with Windows 95/98. No changes have been made to the data, only to the Electronic Codebook System (ECB) software.
The Common Core of Data (CCD) is the primary NCES database on elementary and secondary public education in the United States. It is a comprehensive, annual national statistical database of all elementary and secondary schools and school districts in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the outlying areas under U.S. jurisdiction. This CD-ROM contains three complete databases, which provide CCD data at the school, district, and state levels:
The Common Core of Data (CCD) "Local Education Agency Universe Survey" is one of the five surveys that make up the CCD collection of surveys. This survey provides (1) a complete listing of all education agencies responsible for providing free public elementary/secondary instruction or education support services in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and outlying areas; and (2) basic information about these education agencies and the students for whose education they are responsible. Most of the agencies listed are school districts or other local education agencies. The data are provided annually by state education agencies from their administrative records. This longitudinal file supplements the standard CCD public-use databases by extensively imputing data that were not originally reported by state education agencies. This imputed, linked longitudinal file is thus more useful for testing hypotheses or studying trends over time. It is intended to meet the needs of researchers for a data set describing public school districts over a relatively substantial period of time. The information about district characteristicssuch as urbanicity (e.g., large city vs. rural locale); numbers of schools, teachers, and students; and student characteristicscan be used to measure changes over a 10-year period. Because each school district carries a unique identifier, the longitudinal file can be linked with other school or school district data sets.
The data can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site in ASCII, SAS, or SPSS files. Documentation is provided in separate files.
The Common Core of Data (CCD) "National Public Education Financial Survey" provides detailed data on public elementary and secondary education finances for the 50 states, District of Columbia, and five outlying areas. Financial data are audited at the end of each fiscal year and then submitted to NCES by the state education agencies from their administrative records. After initial submission, states have up to 1 year to send revised data to NCES.
The revised 1993-94 data file was released in 1997. The documentation for this file has recently been expanded, but no data have been changed. Both the data and the expanded documentation can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site.
This file provides information on the numbers of degrees and other awards conferred by all postsecondary institutions in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and outlying areas during academic year 1996-97. These completions data were collected through the NCES Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System "Completions Survey" (IPEDS-C) and "Consolidated Survey" (IPEDS-CN). The IPEDS-CN data were extracted and incorporated with the IPEDS-C data. The completions data can be tabulated by level of degree or award, program category or specialty, sex and race/ethnicity of recipient, and other institutional characteristics, as well as by state and region.
The completions data and documentation can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site. The data are in three fixed-length formatted text files, which can be used with most PC software, including statistical packages such as SAS and SPSS, database packages such as Microsoft Access and DBASE, and programming languages such as C and Visual Basic.
This file contains fall 1997 enrollment data collected through the NCES Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System "Fall Enrollment Survey" (IPEDS-EF) and "Consolidated Survey" (IPEDS-CN). The IPEDS-CN data were extracted and incorporated with the IPEDS-EF data. The file includes all postsecondary institutions in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and outlying areas that are eligible to participate in Title IV federal financial aid programs. For all of these institutions, the file provides enrollment data by student race/ethnicity, sex, attendance status, level, and year of study. For the degree-granting institutions (those that offer associate's, bachelor's, master's, doctor's, or first-professional degrees), the file also provides data by student age.
The fall enrollment data and documentation can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site. The data are in five fixed-length formatted text files, which can be used with most PC software, including statistical packages such as SAS and SPSS, database packages such as Microsoft Access and DBASE, and programming languages such as C and Visual Basic.
Featured on this CD-ROM are data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:1993/1997). The B&B study tracks 1992-93 bachelor's degree recipients, providing a wealth of data on their postbaccalaureate enrollment and employment experiences, including experiences with teaching. In addition to student responses, the CD contains institution and transcript information. This is the first CD to incorporate 1997 "Second Follow-up" data into the B&B Data Analysis System (DAS) for Windows.
DAS software provides convenient public access to several NCES surveys, allowing users to produce custom-made tables and correlation matrices by selecting variables of interest from lists. In addition to the B&B:1993/1997 data, this CD also includes all the other NCES data sets that have been made available for public use through DAS. Visit the DAS Home Page (http://nces.ed.gov/das/) for a list of available surveys as well as access to the latest DAS updates.
This CD-ROM is available only to those who are licensed to use restricted data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:1993/1997). Included on the CD are complete data for the 1993 cohort of B&B participants, as well as an electronic codebook that provides a description of and assistance in accessing these data. In order to protect the confidentiality of respondents, some of these data are not displayed in the Public-Use Data Analysis System (DAS, available online at http://nces.ed.gov/das/ ). By providing access to the complete raw data (individual records for all variables), this CD permits licensed users to conduct analyses not available through the DAS. If your research requires the raw B&B data, you must justify this need and go through formal procedures to obtain the appropriate restricted-use data license.
The State Library Agencies (STLA) Survey is conducted annually by NCES as a cooperative effort with the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) and the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS). The STLA Survey provides state and federal policymakers, researchers, and other interested users with descriptive information about state library agencies in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The STLA Survey for fiscal year 1998, the fifth in the series, collected data on 519 items, including governance, public service hours, service outlets, collections, library service and development transactions, electronic services, allied operations, staff, income, and expenditures.
The STLA Survey file consists of three tables in Microsoft Access format. This database file and related documentation are available on the NCES Web Site.
Nancy Horkay (editor)
As mandated by Congress, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) surveys the educational accomplishments of U.S. students and monitors changes in those accomplishments over time. The NAEP Guide provides readers with an overview of NAEP and helps them better understand its philosophical approach, procedures, analyses, and psychometric underpinnings. It acquaints readers with NAEP's informational resources, demonstrates how NAEP's design matches its role as an indicator of national educational achievement, and describes some of the methods used in the 1999 and 2000 assessments.
This guide is designed for state and national policymakers; state, district, and school education officials who participate in NAEP; researchers who rely on the guide for their introduction to NAEP; and the general public. Using a question-and-answer format, the guide addresses 21 commonly asked questions. For each question, both a succinct answer and further details are provided.
Jeffrey Owings
The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 Eighth-Graders (NELS:88/2000) is a major longitudinal survey sponsored by NCES. For this survey, data were collected from some 25,000 eighth-graders and their parents, teachers, and school principals in 1988. The same students were resurveyed in 1990, 1992, and 1994 as part of the first, second, and third follow-ups. The fourth follow-up will revisit these same students in 2000, when many of them will have completed college. This follow-up will add to our knowledge of how school policies, family involvement, teacher practices, intensity of course-taking experiences, and postsecondary education experiences affect student outcomes (i.e., academic achievement, persistence in high school, participation in postsecondary education, and occupational experiences).
This 11-page brochure provides an overview of the students sampled for NELS:88/2000 and the types of data collected, as well as the research issues addressed by and the kinds of analyses supported by these data. Also discussed are the formats in which data from the fourth follow-up will be disseminated.
Each year, NCES publishes The Condition of Education, a congressionally mandated report that focuses on indicators of the status and progress of education in the United States. The 1999 edition contains 60 indicators, grouped into sections on learner outcomes, the quality of education environments, social support for learning, and educational participation and progress. The Pocket Condition of Education is a convenient reference brochure presenting a small selection of graphics and descriptive text from the full report. Abbreviated versions of 25 indicators make up The Pocket Condition of Education: 1999 .
Oona Cheung
Schools, school districts, and state education agencies maintain a large volume of records on education staff. This 30-page document, developed under the direction of the Data Confidentiality Task Force of the National Forum on Education Statistics, is intended to introduce agency and school officials to the basic issues involved in managing staff records and protecting employee privacy without conflicting with the public's right to have access to government records. This document does not provide legal guidelines, however, and the issues discussed here should be addressed within the context of state laws that govern the maintenance and release of public records.
Jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCES, and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), this training and research program is administered by the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The program has four major elements: a research grants program, a dissertation grants program, a fellows program, and a training institute. The program is intended to enhance the capability of the U.S. research community to use large-scale data sets, specifically those of the NSF and NCES, to conduct studies that are relevant to educational policy and practice, and to strengthen communications between the educational research community and government staff.
Applications for this program may be submitted at any time. The application review board meets three times per year.
The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program was developed to encourage educational researchers to conduct secondary analysis studies using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the NAEP High School Transcript Studies. This program is open to all public or private organizations and consortia of organizations. The program is typically announced annually, in the late fall, in the Federal Register . Grants awarded under this program run from 12 to 18 months and awards range from $15,000 to $100,000.
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