Conference Proceedings:

The Schools and Staffing Survey: Recommendations for the Future

December 1996

(NCES 97-596) Ordering information

Highlights

The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) was first administered in 1987-88 by the (NCES) to provide recurrent information on public and private elementary and secondary schools, teachers, and administrators, especially data on conditions affecting supply and demand for teachers and the characteristics of the teacher force. By linking survey data from classroom teachers and individual school sites to information from local education agencies (LEAs), the survey provides recurrent information on public and private elementary and secondary schools, teachers, and administrators to inform state and federal decisions, and the educational research community. The data now collected fall into four general categories:

The current survey design and process provide for a network of interlocking datasets from different organizational elements at the classroom, school, and district levels. The target population includes all elementary and secondary schools, teachers, and principals in the U.S. The process and instruments are as follows:

1. The School Administrator Survey and the School Survey are administered to a sample of 9,784 public and 3,360 private schools

2. The Teacher Demand and Shortage Survey is administered to each sampled private school (embedded in the school questionnaire) and to the 5,500 LEAs of the sampled public schools

3. The Teacher Survey is administered to a random private school teachers in the sampled schools sample of 56,736 public and 11,548

This process results in a comprehensive, linked database that provides national estimates for public and private schools, districts, principals, and teachers; state-level estimates for public data and affiliation-specific estimates for private data.

SASS was administered at three-year intervals from 1987-88 through 1993-94, with a five year interval before its next administration in 1998-99. NCES is examining the direction, purposes, and uses for SASS in the twenty-first century. This includes scrutinizing the current uses of its data, its relationships with other federally sponsored data collection projects, and future national survey needs during a period of evolving policy priorities.

As part of this process, NCES commissioned twelve papers to examine SASS and make recommendations about improving the scope and utility of the surveys. Authors were selected from the ranks of experts working to understand and describe the nation’s schools, and policy makers interested in instructional practice and professional development. They represent academia, the research community, and specialists in technology, teacher education, and state and local data collection. Authors were asked to examine the current SASS, address the effects of specific issues on future iterations of SASS, and make recommendations about improving, focusing, or expanding the scope and utility of the surveys. The papers were presented during seminars at NCES in the early part of 1996.

The first paper, by Susan S. Stodolsky, addresses data collection on instructional practices and teaching effectiveness. Current reform movements embody an expectation that changes in teachers’ instructional practices will play an important role in improving student achievement, and that national measurement of those changes in classroom processes will track the progress of reform. Instruction and teaching effectiveness are central to the educational process and therefore, one might presume, also central to our collection of information about education. Stodolsky presents the argument for collecting data on instructional practices and teaching effectiveness; examines how teaching effectiveness is conceptualized; describes strengths and limitations of observational and survey data collection; suggests ways in which the effect of curricular reforms could be assessed; and proposes specific ways that SASS might measure instructional practice and content.

In the next paper, David P. Baker suggests that SASS become a new organizational database for the nation’s K through 12th grade schools: an omnibus survey about the internal organization of elementary and secondary schools. Baker proposes that the foremost priority of SASS ought to be organizational and managerial information focusing on four main perspectives: school organization, multiple levels of governance, financial resources and flows, and school-level educational outcomes. Baker argues that if SASS were to become a central vehicle for NCES, it is essential to collect school-level data on educational outcomes such as student achievement, promotion, dropout, disciplinary actions, and college applications. SASS data could then contribute to the policy debate linking student outcomes with schools, their organizations, and resources.

Some analysts suggest that computer use will completely transform classroom instruction in the next 20 years. In the third paper, Kathleen Fulton says that drastic changes are necessary in our data collection about technology if it is to keep pace with classroom innovations. While current data collection on classroom use of computers and related equipment may respond to public and congressional interest in defining the scope of computer use, it is primarily limited to numbers and availability of computers. Future data collection, she argues, needs to be refocused and directed toward defining the effect of state policies on access to technology in schools, how computers are actually used by teachers and students, and the effect of that use on teaching and learning.

Phillip Kaufman argues that SASS data ought to link with information on student achievement. In his paper, Kaufman presents the feasibility and benefits of linking a student sample with SASS teacher and administrative data. He proposes that a successful merger of two data collection systems should produce data that could measure students’ overall academic performance, their growth in achievement, and their progress through critical transitions. A linkage between SASS and a student data component, Kaufman suggests, should also produce some administrative or respondent efficiencies and analytical benefits.

Henry Y. Zheng’s paper discusses the scope and uses of the SASS School Administrator Questionnaire. He argues that current and future efforts to understand and guide educational reform will increase the importance of administrator survey data, especially such information as demographic and educational data, and information on principals’ attitudes toward school management issues such as the priorities of educational goals, seriousness of school problems, and the distribution of decision-making power in schools. Zheng suggests ways in which NCES might encourage greater use of the resulting data and recommends questionnaire modifications to increase data relevance.

Dorothy M. Gilford’s paper addresses data collection on teachers’ inservice professional development. She proposes a framework with which to classify types of programs and discusses several current issues and their implications for professional development and data collection. Gilford recommends expanding the types of professional development items included in SASS; fielding a new computer coordinator survey; and eliminating the district survey by incorporating its essential questions into the principal survey. Gilford also notes that data collection must accommodate the current broad spectrum of professional development activities and their slow evolution from simple awareness programs designed to inform teachers about new ideas to more complex systemic programs shaped by constructivist principles and directed toward results-driven education.

J. Michael Ross argues that the SASS sampling process ought to be redesigned to directly sample districts rather than schools. Given the importance of district-level data for systematically assessing the increased changes, complexities, and responsibilities in the organizational structures of schools and districts, Ross suggests that districts be sampled first, and then schools within the selected districts, a reversal on the current sample design. Redesigned district surveys should also re-emphasize teacher demand and supply issues to focus on district policy and reform information. Such changes, he suggests, would help NCES assemble important information that will be critical in assessing school reform.

Rolf K. Blank recommends that the current design of SASS be linked with state and local education information systems to provide direct and important data on the characteristics of American schools and how education is carried out within them. Such a linkage, Blank asserts, would add to the usability and relevance of SASS data and increase state-level data analysis and reporting. He details three possible approaches and suggests NCES consider providing incentives for cooperation in state and local data collection.

Jay G. Chambers also suggests a redesign of SASS to facilitate examination of resource allocation patterns in public and private schools. Chambers argues that such information would be valuabie to researchers and other data users without unduly increasing respondent burden. Chambers’ paper and recommendations focus on personnel data since 80 percent of public school district budgets are devoted to personnel costs. Implementing his suggestions, he says, would provide a foundation for addressing issues of equity, adequacy, and opportunity to learn within school systems.

In a comprehensive examination of SASS, Erling E. Boe reconsiders the goals, foci, and strategy of SASS; the content balance, extent of coverage, redundantcy of coverage, and potential new areas; and recommends data collection priorities. Boe recommends collecting data on both “enduring” and “emerging” issues of policy concern. He suggests continuing to collect data in ten areas fundamental to the education process; continuing to collect data on the basic attributes of school principals, LEAs, and schools; and expanding data collection in eight areas of school governance/organization and instruction. The paper emphasizes public school data collection, and recommends that SASS data be made relevant to education policy development at all levels, since the mix of federal, state and local influences on schooling has been, and will continue to be, in flux.

Susan P. Choy examines the depth of SASS, focusing on the level at which estimates should be provided, the respondent pool, and the response burden. Choy suggests that the relevance and importance of the original survey purposes remain intact, and the survey is able to capture information on enduring issues, even though changing policy concerns of the early 1990s have shifted the focus of some questions. Choy suggests that SASS monitor the extent to which various types of proposed reforms are actually present in schools and classrooms, and collect more information to describe what goes on at the classroom level. Choy also recommends continuing to collect data with which to provide state- and private school affiliation-level estimates.

Finally, John Howard Burkett argues that there is a pressing public need for more state and local information on schools and that SASS must heed the public’s need for data. He echoes Bee’s call to focus on fundamental aspects of schooling that have been subject to major recent debates, policy action, or public concern. He suggests that the value of SASS will be realized only if it addresses education at the state and local levels.

Individually and collectively, these papers set an ambitious agenda for NCES and SASS and provide the basis on which the Center can make decisions on how best to focus or expand the future direction and emphasis of SASS.

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