• Data Products
  
  
  • Data File: 1997-98 Private School Directory CD-ROM
  • Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, First Follow-up (BPS:96/98): Public Use Data Analysis System (DAS) CD-ROM
  • Data File: Fall Staff in Postsecondary Institutions: 1997
  • Electronic Codebooks for Windows 95/98 CD-ROM
• Other Publications
  • Reference and Reporting Guide for Preparing State and Institutional Reports on the Quality of Teacher Preparation: Title II, Higher Education Act
  • Technical Report and Data File User's Manual for the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey
  • The 10th Federal Forecasters Conference 1999: Papers and Proceedings
• Funding Opportunities
  • The AERA Grants Program
  • The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program

This CD-ROM contains the 1997-98 Private School Directory. The school listings are derived from the 1997-98 Private School Survey (PSS) and include the names, addresses, telephone numbers, enrollment, and other descriptive data for 29,845 private schools and kindergarten programs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. A school locator, which can perform searches for individual schools or for types of schools, is provided. The results of these searches may be downloaded into a file as well as displayed on-screen. The complete data file for the Directory, with documentation, may also be downloaded into a file.

For questions about content, contact Stephen Broughman (stephen.broughman@ed.gov). To obtain this CD-ROM (NCES 2000-313), call the toll-free ED Pubs number (877-433-7827) or contact GPO (202-512-1800).

Featured on this CD-ROM are data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, First Follow-up (BPS:1996/1998). BPS:1996/1998 includes data for students who started their postsecondary education during the 1995-96 academic year, and were surveyed in 1996 and again in 1998. BPS data pertain to persistence, progress, and attainment from initial time of entry into postsecondary education through leaving and entering the workforce.

In addition to the BPS:1996/1998 data, this CD also includes all the other NCES data sets that have been made available for public use through the Data Analysis System (DAS) as of March 2000. 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. 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.

For questionsabout this data product, contact Aurora D'Amico (aurora.d'amico@ed.gov). To obtain this CD-ROM (NCES 2000-155), call the toll-free ED Pubs number (877-433-7827) or contact GPO (202-512-1800).

This file contains fall 1997 staff data collected through the NCES Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System "Fall Staff Survey" (IPEDS-S) and "Consolidated Survey" (IPEDS-CN). The file makes available data for postsecondary institutions in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and outlying areas that are eligible to participate in Title IV financial aid programs. Data on degree-granting institutions include the distribution of full- and part-time staff by primary occupation, gender, and race/ethnicity; full-time faculty by academic rank and tenure; full-time new hires by gender and race/ethnicity; and contracted or donated services by occupational activity. Data on nondegree-granting institutions include the number of staff by employment status, primary occupation, and gender.

The fall staff data and documentation can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site. The data are in four fixed-length text files, which can be used with most software, including statistical packages such as SAS and SPSS, database packages such as ACCESS and DBASE, and programming languages such as C and Visual Basic.

For questionsabout this data product, contact Rosa M. Fernandez (rosa.fernandez@ed.gov). To obtain this data product (NCES 2000-165), visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov)..

This CD-ROM provides updated Electronic Codebook (ECB) software for all 22 of the postsecondary and longitudinal data sets that NCES released with ECBs prior to February 2000. For each of these data sets, separate software is provided to update the old version of the ECB. The updated ECBs run under Windows 95/98, providing enhanced functionality, particularly for those ECBs that were originally developed for DOS.

No data are on this CD. After installing an ECB update, therefore, you must have the original restricted- or public-use CD to access data. Also, the ECBs on this CD do not include any new variables that may have been computed for the data sets since their original release.

For questionsabout this CD-ROM, contact Paula R. Knepper (paula.knepper@ed.gov). To obtain this CD-ROM (NCES 2000-193), contact Aurora D'Amico (aurora.d'amico@ed.gov).

In October 1998, Congress voiced its concern for the quality of teacher preparation by enacting Title II of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Title II authorizes new federal grant programs that support the efforts of states, institutions of higher education, and their school district partners to improve the recruitment, preparation, and support of new teachers. Section 207 of Title II also includes new accountability measures in the form of annual reporting requirements for institutions and states on teacher preparation and licensing.

This Reference and Reporting Guide is intended to assist states and institutions of higher education in fulfilling Title II reporting requirements regarding teacher preparation and certification. The guide fulfills the congressional mandate that NCES develop uniform definitions and reporting methods for institutions of higher education and states in meeting the reporting requirements.

The reports mandated in Title II, section 207, of the HEA are required of two groups: (1) institutions of higher education that conduct teacher preparation programs enrolling students who receive federal assistance under Title IV of the HEA; and (2) states that receive HEA funds.

To obtain this guide (NCES 2000-089), visit the Office of Postsecondary Education Web Site (http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/index.html) or the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov).

Irwin Kirsch, Kentaro Yamamoto, Norma Norris, Donald Rock, Ann Jungeblut, Patricia O'Reilly, Anne Campbell, Lynn Jenkins, Andrew Kolstad, Martha Berlin, Leyla Mohadjer, Joseph Waksberg, Huseyin Goksel, John Burke, Susan Rieger, James Green, Merle Klein, Peter Mosenthal, and Stéphane Baldi

In 1992, NCES conducted the National Adult Literacy Survey to measure the nature and extent of literacy skills among the adult population, age 16 and older. A State Adult Literacy Survey was concurrently performed in 11 states to produce state-level results comparable to the national data. In addition to the household samples, inmates from 87 state and federal prisons were randomly surveyed to represent the inmate population in the United States. Their participation helped to provide better estimates of the literacy levels of the total population and made it possible to report on the literacy proficiencies of this segment of society.

The Technical Report and Data File User's Manual for the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey includes details on the sample design, weighting, instrument development, data collection and processing, scaling and scoring, and literacy levels used for this assessment. The technical report also provides sample SAS and SPSS programs for implementing the jackknife procedure to estimate standard errors.

Author affiliations: I. Kirsch, K. Yamamoto, N. Norris, D. Rock, A. Jungeblut, and P. O'Reilly, ETS; A. Campbell, Diné College; L. Jenkins, Wordsworth Writing and Editing; A. Kolstad, NCES; M. Berlin, L. Mohadjer, J. Waksberg, H. Goksel, J. Burke, S. Rieger, J. Green, and M. Klein, Westat, Inc.; P. Mosenthal, Syracuse University; S. Baldi, American Institutes for Research. For questions about content, contact Andrew Kolstad (andrew.kolstad@ed.gov). To obtain the complete report (NCES 2000-465), call the toll- free ED Pubs number (877-433-7827), visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov), or contact GPO (202-512-1800).

Debra E. Gerald (editor)

The 10th Federal Forecasters Conference, held June 24, 1999, in Washington, DC, provided a forum where forecasters from different federal agencies and other organizations could meet and discuss various aspects of forecasting in the United States. The theme of the conference was "Forecasting in the New Millennium."

One hundred and seventy-seven forecasters attended the day-long conference. A variety of papers were presented on topics related to agriculture, the budget, the economy, health, labor, population, and forecast- ing techniques. These papers are included in these proceedings.

The proceedings also include selected papers from federal presenters at the 19th International Symposium on Forecasting, held June 27-30, 1999, in Washington, DC. The symposium was sponsored by the International Institute of Forecasters.

Editor affiliation: D.E. Gerald, NCES. For questions about these proceedings, contact Tom Snyder (tom.snyder@ed.gov). To obtain these proceedings (NCES 2000-017), visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov).

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.

For more information, visit the AERA Grants Program Web Site (http://www.aera.net/grantsprogram/).

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.

For more information, contact Alex Sedlacek (Alex.Sedlacek@ed.gov).