NCES Procedures

	Confidentiality
	Public-Use Data
	Restricted-Use Data

Confidentiality

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) releases SASS data in accordance with the General Education Provisions of the General Education Provisions Act (GEPA) (20-USC 1221 e-1) and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act. Under the National Education Statistics Act of 1994, as amended, NCES must protect the confidentiality of individual respondents. The law specifically prohibits record matching or deductive disclosure by any user.

NCES makes every effort to provide maximum research information to the public consistent with reasonable confidentiality protections. To ensure that it fully implements the confidentiality provisions required under law, NCES follows specific procedures to avoid disclosure in preparing public-use microdata for release. For more information, refer to the NCES Confidentiality Procedures page.

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Public-Use Data

SASS data are available in an abridged form to researchers and the general public. Schools, principals, teachers and library media centers can all be linked. NCES removes all state identifiers and stratum codes in the public-use data to prevent disclosing the identities of individual administrators and teachers. Detailed affiliation codes for private schools are collapsed into three categories: Catholic, Other Religious, and Nonsectarian. On the Administrator and Teacher files, income, age, and college or university attended are coded into categories.

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Restricted-Use Data

Unlike public-use data, restricted-use data permit linkage across the SASS components, including the district data, enriching potential analyses. Researchers who wish to use restricted-use data sets must obtain a license from NCES. For more information about licensing, refer to the Restricted Use Data Licenses Procedures page.

For more information about NCES standards, refer to the NCES Statistical Standards page.

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