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**MEMORANDUM** P.O. Box 2393

Princeton, NJ 08543-2393

Telephone (609) 799-3535

Fax (609) 799-0005

www.mathematica-mpr.com

**TO:** Marsha Silverberg

**FROM:** Phil Gleason and Rita Stapulonis **DATE:** 11/16/2005

Charter -- 156 (revised)

**SUBJECT**: Response to OMB on First Year Baseline Data Collection

This memorandum is in response to OMB's inquiry regarding the first year
of baseline data collection for the National Charter School Evaluation.
As part of the first round of data collection, a short background
information form (BIF) was requested of parents who signed a consent
form agreeing that their child could participate in the study. The
consent and baseline forms were administered either at the time parents
applied to the charter schools on behalf of their child or after parents
applied to the school but before a school lottery was conducted. In some
cases, schools decided to move up the timing of lotteries and baseline
data collection had to be after the random assignment. The schedule of
the lotteries and the application process were all determined by the
charter schools; evaluation data collection had to be fit into the
existing school procedures.

Initial data collection of the BIF was done as a self-administered hard
copy questionnaire with either the school distributing the questionnaire
along with the consent form to parents applying to the charter school,
or by MPR mailing a BIF to parents once a signed affirmative consent was
received. Data collection later moved to telephone interviewing, where
interviewers were able to mail a new form to parents or complete the
interview over the phone. For schools where BIF data collection began
late in the application process, telephone interviews were the sole form
of data collection.

Aside from schools that hosted orientation sessions for interested
families and invited staff from MPR to attend and assist with consent
and BIF administration, engaging the schools in the baseline data
collection process was not an efficient or successful approach. The
staff at charter schools typically play multiple roles and are extremely
busy; assisting with the data collection for a national study is not
their top priority. To reduce burden on school staff, much of the
activity that was first expected of charter school staff moved to the
centralized approach as outlined above, which utilized MPR's survey
operation center (SOC).

Another approach we tested was utilizing field or in-person interviewers
to track cases that could not be contacted centrally from MPR's SOC. We
tested this approach with sample from two schools that were located in
different sections of a large city. We trained two different field
interviewers and assigned 52 cases that could not be successfully
contacted by telephone through the SOC. Of the 52 cases assigned, 26
were successfully located and the BIF and consent forms administered by
in-person field interviewers. While in-person efforts are more expensive
than phone-only contacts, we felt that the cost was reasonable given the
50 percent rate of return on the attempted cases, and especially since
these were cases we had tried unsuccessfully to complete by telephone.

Overall, BIF's were completed with 95 percent of the parents who signed
an affirmative consent form. Sixty-five percent (65%) of the completed
questionnaires were self-administered and the remainder were completed
over the phone. Our plans for the second year of baseline data
collection build upon the lessons learned during the first year. While
we will engage the charter schools in collecting consent forms as part
of their normal application process, MPR will administer the BIFs as
telephone interviews from our SOC. Additionally, we will utilize the
in-person approach with sample from select schools that have lower
response rates and seem as though they may benefit from in-person
tracking after initial efforts by telephone.