Data Products

• Data File: Postsecondary Education in the United States : Fall 2000, Spring 2001, and Degrees Conferred 1999 –2000
• Data File: Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study 2000/01 Data Analysis System (DAS) Online

• NAEP Writing 2002 State Snapshot Reports
• The Nation's Report Card: Writing Highlights 2002
• Reading—Young Children's Achievement and Classroom Experiences
• A Brief Profile of America’s Private Schools
• A Brief Profile of America’s Public Schools
• Directory of Public Elementary and Secondary Education Agencies 2001–02
• Congressionally Mandated Studies of College Costs and Prices
• Assessing the Arts: Selected NAEP Tasks and Scoring Guides for Grades 4 and 12 1997 Field Test. Dance, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts
• National Household Education Surveys Program of 2001: Data File User's Manual, Volumes I –IV

• Training
• The AERA Grants Program
• The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program
• AIR Grants Program
• NPEC/AIR Focused Grants

Data Products

Data File: Postsecondary Education in the United States : Fall 2000, Spring 2001, and Degrees Conferred 1999 –2000

This data file was constructed from data collected through the 2000 –01 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The file includes data on institutional characteristics for academic year 2000 –01, enrollment for fall 2000, financial statistics for fiscal year 2000, student financial aid for academic year 1999 –2000, and degrees conferred during the period July 1, 1999 , through June 30, 2000 .

IPEDS is the core of the NCES postsecondary education data collection program. IPEDS is a single, comprehensive system of interrelated surveys to collect institution-level data in such areas as enrollments, program completions, faculty, staff, and finances.

Data File: Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study 2000/01 Data Analysis System (DAS) On–Line

This data file contains data from the 2000/01 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:2000/01). The 2000/01 survey is a 1-year follow-up of a national sample of students who completed bachelor’s degrees in academic year 1999–2000 and were first surveyed as part of the 1999–2000 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:2000). B&B:2000/01 focused on time to degree completion, participation in postbaccalaureate education and employment, and the activities of newly qualified teachers.

The DAS allows users to conduct analyses of data gathered in B&B:2000/01 online via the web. The DAS software enables users to produce custom-made tables and correlation matrices by selecting variables of interest from lists.

Other Publications

NAEP Writing 2002 State Snapshot Reports

National Center for Education Statistics

The 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) included state-level writing assessments of public school student performance at grades 4 and 8. This online document provides, for each participating state or other jurisdiction, a one-page report on writing assessment results at the selected grade level (4 or 8). Each report provides the overall scale score and achievement-level results, as well as results by student subgroup.

NAEP, known as "The Nation's Report Card," is authorized by Congress, administered by NCES, and overseen by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). For over 30 years, NAEP has been the only ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do in major academic subjects.

The Nation's Report Card: Writing Highlights 2002

Hilary Persky, Mary Daane, and Ying Jin

In 2002, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted a national assessment of student writing at grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP also conducted a state-level writing performance assessment of public school students at grades 4 and 8. This full-color publication uses a tabloid format to present highlights from the NAEP 2002 writing assessment. It describes assessment content; presents major findings at grades 4, 8, and 12 as average scale scores and as percentages of students scoring at or above achievement levels for the nation; shows results at grades 4 and 8 for participating states and other jurisdictions; and discusses the performance of selected subgroups defined by gender and race/ethnicity. This publication also includes sample assessment writing tasks and student responses in narrative, informative, and persuasive writing modes.

NAEP is known as “The Nation's Report Card.” It is authorized by Congress, administered by NCES, and overseen by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). For over 30 years, NAEP has been the only ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do in major academic subjects.

Reading —Young Children's Achievement and Classroom Experiences

Kristin Denton, Jerry West, and Jill Walston

This brochure presents a special analysis from The Condition of Education 2003 that examines children's reading achievement and classroom experiences in kindergarten and first grade. The analysis uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K) to describe children's home and classroom literacy environments and discuss how factors such as the home literacy environment and length of school day relate to children's reading achievement.

While the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has regularly assessed the reading skills of U.S. fourth-graders since the early 1970s, few national studies have assessed the reading skills of children when they enter kindergarten and have documented the development of these skills through fifth grade. ECLS-K strives to help fill this gap in knowledge by following a nationally representative sample of children from kindergarten through fifth grade.

A Brief Profile of America’s Private Schools

National Center for Education Statistics

This brochure summarizes important findings from the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). It examines how private schools differ by type (Catholic, other religious, and nonsectarian) and how they differ from public schools. The document looks at private school location and level, school size, demographic characteristics of students, teachers’ influence on school policies, teachers’ ratings of school climate and management, and principals and school leadership.

SASS is an integrated set of surveys that collects information on a wide range of topics about the characteristics of the school, staff, and student population; school climate; and staff perceptions. For more information about the survey, go to the SASS web site (http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass).

A Brief Profile of America’s Public Schools

National Center for Education Statistics

This brochure summarizes important findings from the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). It examines how public schools differ by community type (urban, suburban, and rural) and by school level (elementary, secondary, and combined). It examines public school staff and students, programs, security measures, principal characteristics, teacher working conditions, and library media centers. It also looks at differences between public and private schools.

SASS is an integrated set of surveys that collects information on a wide range of topics about the characteristics of the school, staff, and student population; school climate; and staff perceptions. For more information about the survey, go to the SASS web site (http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass).

Directory of Public Elementary and Secondary Education Agencies 2001–02

Lena McDowell and John Sietsema

This directory provides a complete listing of agencies responsible for providing free public elementary/secondary instruction or education support services in the 50 states, District of Columbia, five outlying areas, Department of Defense dependents schools, and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. The agencies are organized by state or jurisdiction and, within each state or jurisdiction, by agency type. Seven types of agencies are listed: regular school districts, supervisory union components, supervisory union administrative centers, regional educational service agencies (RESAs), state-operated agencies, federally operated agencies, and other agencies.

The entry for each listed agency (if complete) includes the following information: agency name, mailing address, and phone number; name of county; metropolitan status code; grade span; student membership (number of students enrolled); number of regular high school graduates; number of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs); number of teachers; and number of schools. The information presented comes primarily from the NCES Common Core Of Data (CCD), “Local Education Agency Universe Survey,” 2001 –02. Preceding the information on individual agencies are several tables providing summary information, such as numbers and percentages of agencies by type, size, and state.

Congressionally Mandated Studies of College Costs and Prices

National Center for Education Statistics

This brochure summarizes the findings of three studies commissioned by NCES in response to the 1998 Amendments to the Higher Education Act: Study of College Costs and Prices, 1988–89 to 1997–98 (NCES 2002–157); What Students Pay for College: Changes in Net Price of College Attendance Between 1992–93 and 1999–2000 (NCES 2002–174); and A Study of Higher Education Instructional Expenditures: The Delaware Study of Instructional Costs and Productivity (NCES 2003–161).

The Study of College Costs and Prices examines the relationship between costs and prices and attempts to determine the extent to which spending (expenditure) patterns contribute to tuition increases in higher education. Since this first study showed a weak relationship between price and cost, NCES commissioned two follow-up studies: What Students Pay for College examines increases in financial aid and the relationship between price and various forms of student financial aid in order to consider “affordability” for low- and middle-income students. A Study of Higher Education Instructional Expenditures focuses exclusively on instructional costs, which, on average, account for 80 percent of institutional expenditures.

Assessing the Arts: Selected NAEP Tasks and Scoring Guides for Grades 4 and 12 1997 Field Test. Dance, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts

Hilary Persky, Brent A. Sandene, and Jamie Askew

This CD–ROM complements the original National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) arts assessment report for 1997 by including tasks for 4th- and 12th-graders in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. The actual 1997 arts assessment, because of cost limitations and sampling problems, was administered only at grade 8 and did not include dance. This CD –ROM also contains 16 arts tasks for dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts at grades 8 and 12 that were developed but never used for the 1997 NAEP arts assessment. Included are the complete instructions for students, along with any audio or visual components used as stimuli; the actual tasks given to students, whether written questions or creating or performing tasks; and the scoring guides used to evaluate student performance.

NAEP is known as “The Nation's Report Card.” It is authorized by Congress, administered by NCES, and overseen by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). For over 30 years, NAEP has been the only ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do in major academic subjects.

National Household Education Surveys Program of 2001: Data File User’s Manual,
Volumes I–IV

Mary Hagedorn, Jill Montaquila, Mary Jo Nolin, Kwang Kim, Brian Kleiner, Tiffany Waits, Christopher Chapman, and Kathryn Chandler

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) encompasses a number of household telephone surveys designed to address a wide range of education-related issues. This data file user's manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the following three public-use data files of the 2001 NHES surveys: the Early Childhood Program Participation (ECPP–NHES:2001) data file, the Before- and After-School Programs and Activities (ASPA–NHES:2001) data file, and the Adult Education and Lifelong Learning (AELL–NHES:2001) data file.

This manual is composed of four volumes. Volume I includes information about the purpose of the study, the data collection instruments, the sample design, and data collection and data processing procedures. Appendixes to volume I contain the data collection instruments and a chart summarizing weighting and sample variance estimation variables for all NHES surveys. Each of volumes II, III, and IV of this user's manual addresses one data file, the ECPP, ASPA, or AELL file, respectively. They each contain a guide to the data file; a discussion of data considerations and anomalies; and, in appendixes, the file layout, derived variable specifications, codebook for the file, and directions and sample code for linking the files.

Training and Funding Opportunities

Training

This summer, NCES will be offering a series of advanced-studies seminars on the analysis of the following NCES databases:

• Education finance data from the Common Core of Data (CCD) (May 24 –26)

• National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) and Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) (May 26 –28)

• Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) (June 28 –30)

• Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 –99 (ECLS-K) (July 6 –9)

• National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) (July 14 –16)

• National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (July 20 –23)

• Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) (August 4 –6)

These seminars are designed for researchers in academic communities and other research communities (e.g., federal agencies, research organizations, and think tanks that are interested in quantitative studies). Each multiday seminar is held in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and covers several topics, including the nature and content of the database, computer software for accessing and analyzing the data, and funding opportunities. Seminar activities include lectures, illustrations, demonstrations, and hands-on practice. At the end of each seminar, participants are expected to make a brief presentation describing their analyses and findings.

The AERA Grants Program

Jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCES, and the Institute of Education Sciences , 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 following are examples of grants recently awarded under the program:

Research Grants

• Marigee Bacolod, University of California, Irvine—Equalizing Educational Opportunities: Who Teaches and Where They Choose to Teach

• William Carbonaro, University of Notre Dame—Racial/Ethnic Differences in College Graduation: The Lasting Effects of Students'’ High School Experiences

• David Figlio, University of Florida—Inside the “Black Box:” School Responses to Accountability Pressure

• Janet Holt, Northern Illinois University—Racial and Gender Gaps in Math and Science Educational and Occupational Persistence: Exploring Critical Transitions Using Growth Mixture Modeling

• Kim Lloyd, Princeton University/Washington State University—Affirmative Action and the Texas Top 10% Policy: Minority Representation and Success in Selective Public and Private Universities Under Alternative Policy Regimes

• John Logan, University at Albany, SUNY—Brown v. Board of Education at 50: Desegregation Orders and Public School Integration

• Sean Reardon, Pennsylvania State University—Understanding the Growth of Achievement Inequality in the Early Years of Schooling

• Catherine Weinberger, University of California , Santa Barbara—High School Leadership Skills and Adult Labor Market Outcomes

Dissertation Grants

• Gayle Christensen, Stanford University—What Matters for Immigrant Achievement Cross-Nationally? A Structural Equation Model Comparing Immigrant and Non-Immigrant Student Achievement

• Claudia Galindo, Pennsylvania State University—Hispanic Immigrants’ Learning Trajectories: The Role of English Ability, Parental Involvement, and Language Support Programs in the First Years of Schooling

• Michal Kurlaender, Harvard University—Reinforcing Disadvantage or Increasing Opportunity ? Alternative Routes to Educational Attainment

• Megan Kurlychek, Pennsylvania State University—The Multilevel Context of School Crime: Assessing the Relative Contributions of Student, School and Community Characteristics

• Yan Lee, University of California , Los Angeles—Are There Competitive Effects of School Choice on Traditional Public Schools? The Case of Michigan Charter Schools

• John Luczak, Stanford University—Who Will Teach in the 21st Century? Beginning Teacher Training Routes and Attrition Rates

• Byron Lutz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology—The Effects of the End of Court-Ordered Desegregation

• Liang Zhang, University of Arizona and Cornell University—How College Affects Students: Toward the Reconciliation of Theory with Empirical Evidence

The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program

The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program was developed to encourage education 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. The following grants were awarded for fiscal year 2003:

• Dr. Duncan Chaplin, Urban Institute—Estimating Relationships in NAEP

• Linda Cook, Educational Testing Service—Are the Inclusion Policies and Practices for State Assessment Systems and NAEP State Assessments Aligned?

• Dr. Louis DiBello, Educational Testing Service—Skill Profiles for Groups of Students at a Given NAEP Scale Level—Development and Demonstration

• David Grissmer, RAND—Analysis of Central City NAEP

• Andrew Houtenville, Cornell University—Monitoring Students With Disabilities Using NAEP Data

• Brian A. Jacob, Harvard College—Test-Based Accountability and Student Achievement: An Investigation of Differential Performance Trends on NAEP and State Assessments

• Akihito Kamata, Florida State University—Differential Item Functioning Analyses for Students With Test Accommodations on NAEP Test Items

• Donald J. Leu, University of Connecticut—The Impact of Computer Access and Use on Student Reading Achievement

• Christopher Swanson, Urban Institute—Measuring Classroom Instruction Using NAEP

AIR Grants Program

The Association for Institutional Research (AIR), with support from NCES and the National Science Foundation (NSF), has developed a grants program titled Improving Institutional Research in Postsecondary Educational Institutions. The goals of this program are to provide professional development opportunities to doctoral students, institutional researchers, educators, and administrators, and to foster the use of federal databases for institutional research in postsecondary education. The program has the following four major components:

• dissertation research fellowships for doctoral students;
• research grants for institutional researchers and faculty;
• a Summer Data Policy Institute in the Washington, DC, area to study the national databases of the NSF and NCES; and
• a senior fellowship program.

Calls for proposals go out in spring, and proposals are normally accepted through June 30 for work starting no later than September 1 of each year. The following are examples of grants awarded for fiscal year 2003:

• Lamont A. Flowers, University of Florida—Labor Market Outcomes of African American College Graduates

• Heidi Grunwald, University of Michigan—Factors Affecting Faculty Use of Instructional Technology in Traditional Classrooms: A Hierarchical Linear Model Approach

• Aruna Lakshmanan , Louisiana State University—A Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Educational Aspirations and Their Relation to College Choice Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling and Group-Based Mixture Modeling

• Sang Min Lee, University of Florida—Identifying Longitudinal Causal Model for Postsecondary Educational Attainment for Low Socioeconomic Status Students

• Susan Carol Losh, Florida State University—It's in the Details: Dimensions of Education, Gender, and Relations Among Basic Science Knowledge, Attitudes, Understanding Scientific Inquiry, and Pseudoscience Support in the American General Public

• Stephen R. Porter, Wesleyan University—Educating Future Scientists: Understanding the Impact of Baccalaureate Institutions on the Decision to Pursue Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering

• Jim S. Settle, University of Missouri-St. Louis—The Effect of Socioeconomic Status on Year-to-Year Persistence of First-Generation and Continuing-Generation College Students at Two-Year and Four-Year Institutions

• Leslie Stratton, Virginia Commonwealth University—The Sensitivity of Attrition Models to the Timing and Duration of Withdrawal: Analysis Using Beginning Postsecondary Longitudinal Data From 1990–1994

NPEC/AIR Focused Grants

The National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC) and the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) are pleased to announce the inaugural year of a focused grant program that will fund research and studies to increase understanding and knowledge in a specific issue area that has been identified by the NPEC Executive Committee as critically important to the postsecondary education community. This year the focus is on student success. Proposals may suggest undertaking a variety of activities that focus on student success. Proposals are due January 15 of each year and the grant award period is June 1, 2004, through May 31, 2005 .

In 2004, NPEC and AIR plan to make 5 to 10 one-year grant awards ranging up to $15,000 for dissertation work and up to $30,000 for other activities. Grant recipients should plan on making a presentation of their work at NPEC's national conference in 2006. Travel to the conference will be paid by NPEC.