Quarterly Newsletter

***Summer 2007***

**Request for Comments: Paperwork Clearance Package for SY 2007-08
ED*Facts* Data Collection**

On Friday, May 11, 2007, the Department posted the paperwork clearance
package for the SY 2007-08 ED*Facts* data collection on the EDICS Web
site for public comment. Comments are due by July 10, 2007. The package
can be found at
[[http://edicsweb.ed.gov/]{.underline}](http://edicsweb.ed.gov/) under
\"[[Browse Pending
Collections]{.underline}](../browse/unapproved.cfm),\" listed as
\"[[(03334)]{.underline}](../browsecoll.cfm%3Fpkg_serial_num=3334)
1875-0240-v.3 "Annual Mandatory Collection of Elementary and Secondary
Education Data for ED*Facts*.\" The Department is requesting a
three-year clearance for the data in this package.

This notice requests that reviewers provide comments on (1) the
necessity and timeliness of the collection, (2) how the collection can
be improved, (3) the availability of these data from SEAs, and (4)
questions relating to how these data are currently collected.

Attachment B of the package contains the entire ED*Facts* data set.
Attachment C contains the changes from the prior ED*Facts* data set.
Finally, a one-page document explaining the content of the attachments
on the website, entitled \"[[Att_EDFacts 2007 READ ME
FIRST2.doc]{.underline}](javascript:_downld('Att_EDFacts 2007 READ ME FIRST2.doc')),\"
is provided for your use.

When submitting your comments to the Department, please cite the number
of the question you are addressing, as well as the page number and data
group (or category) name and identification number, referenced. Specific
comments are particularly welcomed, as are options for solving any
challenges encountered.

**Merger of ED*Facts* with the Common Core of Data (CCD) for SY
2006-07**

Significant progress has been made this spring on merging the Common
Core of Data (CCD) with the ED*Facts* collection*.* Encouraged by the
U.S. Department of Education (ED), many state education agencies (SEAs)
have prioritized the submission of FY 2006-07 Common Core Data elements
through the EDEN Submission System (ESS), and have additionally
reflected this priority in their submission plans. At this time, the
data collection for the FY 2006-07 CCD data is well underway.

This merger has required an adjustment in the data collection process
for both ED*Facts* and CCD coordinators. For the FY 2006-07 pilot year,
the merger uses functionality from both the ED*Facts* and the CCD system
to collect and edit data. This transition has improved the process in
many ways, but also increased the learning curve for ED*Facts*
coordinators. The growing pains associated with the FY 2006-07 pilot
year are essential to the goals of the merger, to ensure that ED has
timely and accurate data from a single source.

To help ED*Facts* and CCD Coordinators navigate the pilot process, ED
provided a series of trainings

for states. These training sessions were offered both

online and in-person at the Winter Management Information Systems (MIS)
conference in Atlanta, Georgia and the Spring ED*Facts* Coordinators
Meeting in Dallas, Texas.

ED*Facts* coordinators are integral to the success of this merger. In
addition to being responsible for submitting data to EDEN, ED*Facts*
coordinators also play an active role in helping ED identify 'kinks' in
the pilot system and offering suggestions on how to improve the system.
ED encourages a continuing dialogue on issues relating to this merger
through the Partner Support Center and will be offering more training
and opportunities for feedback at NCES's Summer Data Conference in
Washington, DC, scheduled for July 25-27, 2007.

**SY 2005-06 Consolidated State Performance Report (CSPR)**

The collection and verification of the SY 2005-06 Consolidated State
Performance Report (CSPR) is complete and the drafting of the Annual
Report to Congress on the Implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
has begun. Chief State School Officers received copies of the lists of
their schools and districts in need of improvement and select members of
Congress received copies of their state's SY 2005-06 data tables from
Part I of the CSPR, used to populate the Annual Report to Congress.

For some states that submitted the requisite SY 2005-06 ED*Facts* data
files, the prepopulation of their CSPR data was greatly enhanced and
resulted in significant time savings across states. Other states are
looking to the SY 2006-07 CSPR to take advantage of the ED*Facts* data
prepopulation.

**IDEA Data Transformation**

**to ED*Facts***

This spring, the Department saw an increase in the number of states
seeking to become ED*Facts*-only submitters of their Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) data. During the latest round of
congruency analyses, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Oregon were
added as "3-for-3" states (states that submitted three IDEA data
collections \-- child count, educational environments, and exiting \--
exclusively to ED*Facts*). This brings the number of 3-for-3 states to
30. ED congratulates the hard work and collaboration between the state
ED*Facts* coordinator and the IDEA Part B Data Manager in these states!

In recognition of this accomplishment, these states received a letter of
congratulations signed by both John Hager, the Assistant Secretary for
the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, and Doug
Mesecar, the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Planning,
Evaluation and Policy Development. In addition, states were recognized
for their accomplishments in achieving ED*Facts*-only submission status
at the Spring ED*Facts* Coordinators meeting in Dallas.

The Department and Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) staff
continue to work with 12 states (Colorado, Connecticut, District of
Columbia, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York,
Ohio, South Carolina, and Utah) that have not been approved as
ED*Facts*-only submitters for any of the three IDEA data collections.
While many factors affect a state's ability to engage in data
transformation, these states are encouraged to seek the help of the
Department in making these transitions.

This spring also saw the development of a new ED*Facts* feature \-\--
the implementation of edit checks for the SY 2006-07 child count and
educational environments data at the state education agency (SEA) level.
These edit checks were built into the ED*Facts* collection upfront and
provide a significant boost to the data quality of IDEA data. The checks
are identical to those used by the OSEP contractor to clean and verify
the IDEA data for the nonED*Facts*-only states after their data are
submitted. Edit checks are currently under development in ED*Facts* for
the SY 2006-07 exiting data, which are due by November 1.

The Submission Error Report, another new feature in ED*Facts*, was also
implemented to assist ED*Facts*-only states with improving the data
quality of submitted data. If the SEA-level IDEA data violate any of the
internal data quality checks, an ED*Facts* Submission Error Report is
produced. We are currently working on developing an automatic Submission
Error Report notification that will alert the state data submitter to
the error report.

The Department is also pleased to see that many states are submitting
LEA- and school-level IDEA files, including some from states not
designated as ED*Facts*-only submitters. Overall, the amount and quality
of IDEA data are increasing.

**2006 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC)**

The 2006 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), which collects information
on SY 2005--06 and SY 2006--07, closes June 30, 2007. More than 98
percent of the 5,929 districts in the sample have completed the survey.
During fall 2007, efforts will focus on calculating state and national
projections from the 2006 CRDC data, loading the 2006 CRDC data into
ED*Facts* (where 2000 and 2004 CRDC data already reside), developing
ED*Facts* reports for displaying selected CRDC items for these
collection years, and making the data available to researchers.

The CRDC is a legislatively mandated survey that has been collected from
a sample of school districts biennially since 1968. The 2004 and 2006
CRDC surveys were implemented primarily using the Web-based EDEN Survey
Tool (EST). ED plans to merge the CRDC into the state-level EDEN
Submission System (ESS) over the next four years. All data groups and
categories for the CRDC were included in the 2007--08 OMB EDEN package,
and the OMB package includes a schedule for the transition from EST to
ESS, including a schedule for pilot testing. States are encouraged to
let the ED*Facts* team know if they are willing to help with the pilot
testing by submitting some CRDC data groups prior to their scheduled
deployment for collection via ESS. The 2008 CRDC is expected to be a
hybrid collection, with some data coming in via ESS and some via EST. By
the 2010 CRDC, the Department plans for the CRDC to be collected
entirely via ESS on an annual basis.

The CRDC provides data on key education and civil rights issues in our
nation\'s public schools for use by ED\'s Office for Civil Rights and
other ED offices as well as policymakers and researchers outside of ED.
The CRDC collects information about students in public schools,
including enrollment, educational services and academic proficiency
results, disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English
proficiency and disability.

**Indian Education Data Collection (EASIE)**

LEAs (or tribes) who chose to apply for SY 2007-08 funds under the
Indian Education Formula Grant Program used the new Web system known as
Formula Grant Electronic Application System for Indian
Education---Formula Grant EASIE. By the deadline of May 3, 2007, 1,233
districts had completed their applications based on their actual
allocations. Staff in the Office of Indian Education (OIE) are currently
reviewing those applications and using EASIE to interact with applicants
either to inform them that their application is approved or to request
further information necessary for application approval. With the new
review process, which takes advantage of technological capabilities, OIE
had already processed more than 500 applications by mid-June, 2007. The
Department expects to make the grant awards on July 1, 2007. Because of
this Web process, the July awards will be based on final approved
applications, whereas in the previous paper process, the July awards
were based on preliminary applications and grantees were required to
submit a second application with final information. The EASIE process
has resulted in significant reduction in burden for both applicants and
ED.

**Opportunity: Avoid Duplicative Reporting for the State Implementation
of Accountability and Teacher Quality Study**

The State Implementation of Accountability and Teacher Quality Study,
currently being conducted by the Policy and Program Studies Service at
the U. S. Department of Education, is part of the
congressionally-mandated National Assessment of Title I. Data requested
for this study include information on the status of annual yearly
progress (AYP) and the status of various component indicators for each
school and district. If States wish, they may leverage their ED*Facts*
data submissions to satisfy the data requirements of this study, without
duplicatively submitting data for the State Implementation Study. Please
contact the Partner Support Center at 877-457-3336 or Stephanie Stullich
at 202-401-2342 at ED for further information.

> **Improvements to**
>
> **Charter School Data**

For the last two years, ED*Facts* has been working with the Charter
School Programs (CSP) to improve the accuracy of data on charter
schools. Data on charter schools are used to track CSP's progress on
meeting the targets of the program's performance indicators. The goal of
the CSP is to support the creation and development of a large number of
high-quality charter schools that are free from state or local rules
that inhibit flexible operation, are held accountable for enabling
students to reach challenging state performance standards, and are open
to all students. The Secretary has set the following performance
indicators to measure these goals and determine the effectiveness and
efficiency of the program:

> \(1\) The number of states, including the District of Columbia and
> Puerto Rico, with charter school laws
>
> \(2\) The number of charter schools in operation around the Nation
>
> \(3\) The percentage of charter school students who are achieving at
> or above the proficient level on State examinations in mathematics and
> reading
>
> \(4\) The federal cost per student in implementing a successful
> charter school (defined as a charter school in operation for three or
> more years)

The starting point for the effort to improve the accuracy of these data
is correctly identifying charter schools in each state\'s ED*Facts* data
through data group ID 27: Charter School Status. Forty-one SEAs
currently have charter schools. Of those 41, all but four have submitted
data on charter schools. The data submitted by these 37 SEAs to
ED*Facts* were recently compared to data collected by two non-profit
organizations. The data for 24 of the 37 states were within 5 schools of
the data collected by the two non-profits. The data are not expected to
exactly align because of differing collection periods, however, the
accuracy of the data across sources, including ED*Facts*, was
encouraging.

EDFacts staff will continue working with the Department's Charter School
Program so that accurate data are available to use for their program
performance indicators.

> **Summary Timetable for**
>
> **ED*Facts'* Data Submissions**

Below is a listing of known data submission dates for 2006-07 for the
family of ED*Facts* data sources. This timetable is provided so SEAs can
plan for upcoming submissions and also be continuously aware of any
dates that may have passed, for which data are still expected.

> **Mandatory Submissions for**
>
> **CCD and CSPR Data**

+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+
| **COLLECTION**                   | **OPENS**    | **CLOSES/**        |
|                                  |              |                    |
|                                  |              | **DUE DATE**       |
+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+
| ED*Facts*                        | 1/07         | 1/08               |
|                                  |              |                    |
| SY 2006-07                       |              |                    |
+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+
| Early (CCD files 2,              | 1/07         | 3/07               |
|                                  |              |                    |
| 29, 39, 52, 59, 89,              |              |                    |
|                                  |              |                    |
| 101\)                            |              |                    |
+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+
| > Middle (CCD files 33,46)       | 2/07         | 5/07               |
+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+
| > End (CCD file 102)             | 6/07         | 9/07               |
+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+
| > End (CSPR files 3,75-81)       | 6/07         | 11/07              |
+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+
| > Close out (CCD files           | 9/07         | 1/08               |
| > 32,40,102,122)                 |              |                    |
+----------------------------------+--------------+--------------------+

In addition to the above mandatory opening and closing dates for data
collections, each SEA should submit its full submission plan and revise
it as appropriate.

Many enterprising SEAs are submitting data to ED*Facts* under the "Early
Adopter" option, to avoid duplicative submissions to multiple data
collections. The following "Early Adopter Submissions" table provides
dates for submitting data to ED*Facts*-only for use in multiple
collections. If you have any questions about these submission
opportunities, please contact the Partner Support Center at
877-457-3336.

**Early Adopter Submissions**

+-----------------------------------+-----------------+----------------+
| **COLLECTION**                    | **OPENS**       | **CLOSES/**    |
|                                   |                 |                |
|                                   |                 | **DUE DATE**   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------+----------------+
| NCLB Implementation Study data    | 6/1/07          | 6/30/07        |
|                                   |                 |                |
| SY 2005-06                        |                 |                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------+----------------+
| IDEA exiting data                 | 9/07            | 11/1/07        |
|                                   |                 |                |
| SY 2006-07                        |                 |                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------+----------------+
| IDEA child count and environment  | 1/08            | 2/1/08         |
| data                              |                 |                |
|                                   |                 |                |
| SY 2007-08                        |                 |                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------+----------------+
| Gun-Free Schools data             | TBD             | TBD            |
|                                   |                 |                |
| SY 2006-07                        |                 |                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------+----------------+

######### 2007 ED*Facts* Coordinators' Meeting

######## May 15-16 in Dallas, Texas

The ED*Facts* team welcomed state partners to the Spring Coordinators
Meeting in Dallas, TX on May 15 and 16, 2007. The spring meeting had
record attendance, with representatives from all 52 SEAs participating.
For the first time, Consolidated State Performance Report (CSPR)
coordinators convened at a national U. S. Department of Education
conference.

Tom Luce kicked off the ED*Facts* meeting by speaking to a joint session
of the Chief State School Officers, ED*Facts* coordinators and CSPR
coordinators. Immediately following Tom Luce's speech, Ross Santy
publicly recognized states for their efforts and successes with
ED*Facts* submissions.

The awards for excellence, honorable mentions, and recognition
certificates highlighted the current ED*Facts* priorities. Over 30 SEAs
received recognitions for their 2006-07 data submissions! The
recognition categories were:

-   Most Successful File Submissions Award,

-   Top CCD Performers Award,

-   Gun-Free Schools Act for Submitting Data to ED*Facts* Award,

-   3-for-3 EDEN-Only States for Special Education Data Award,

-   ED*Facts* Submission Plans Honorable Mention,

-   2006-07 ED*Facts* Most Improved Honorable Mention,

-   2-for-3 EDEN-Only States for Special Education Data Honorable
    Mention, and

-   State Leaders Submitting District Data for the 2006 Civil Rights
    Data Collection Recognition Certificate.

The Department of Education's goal for the spring meeting was to
communicate clear priorities for the work states should be planning to
complete in the coming months. Participants left the conference with
stronger relationships with their state data submission teams, with a
head start on planning for their SY 2007-08 submissions and for their
transitions to submitting the full data set, and with information on the
proposed SY 2007-08 ED*Facts* data set and the planned changes to the
collection for the upcoming year and beyond. States now will be
following up on "to-do's" identified in the meeting.

**Summer Forum and Data Conference (STATS-DC 2007) July 25-27, 2007**

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in the U.S
Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), will
sponsor the annual NCES Data Conference from July 25-27, 2007 at the
Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.\
\
This data conference is an opportunity for professional networking,
updates on federal and national activities affecting data collection and
reporting, and information about the best new approaches in collecting,
reporting, and using education statistics. The conference will provide
information about changes in how the U.S. Department of Education
collects and uses data, and developments in electronic data standards
for schools, school districts, and states. There will be half-day
training sessions for CCD Fiscal and Nonfiscal Data Coordinators,
presentations on NCES\'s survey and assessment programs, and overviews
of developing statewide longitudinal data systems.

To register for the July conference, please contact Susan Rittenhouse at
Westat at (301) 294-2056.

**\* ED*FACTS* SUBMISSION UPDATE \***

From November 1, 2004 through May 31, 2007, the total transmissions from
states to ED*Facts* are

29,218, with successful transmissions of 14,690, including replaced
transmissions. The table that follows displays the successful
transmissions for this time period.

As you continue to grow and build your data files, please use the
Partner Support Center (PSC) for any challenges you may encounter during
transmissions. The center's hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET,
Monday through Friday, and the telephone number for the center is
877-457-3336 (877-HLP-EDEN).

Additionally, the states continue to provide up-to-the -minute
submission plans data. We have received 50 state submission plans for SY
2006-07, to date.

The table below shows the number of successful transmissions from the
states to ED*Facts* from

November 2004 to May 2007.

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