MEMORANDUM OMB # 1850-0641
DATE: June 30, 2010
TO: Shelly Martinez
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget
FROM: Stephen Broughman
National Center for Education Statistics
THROUGH: Kashka Kubzdela
National Center for Education Statistics
SUBJECT: Response to 6-29-2010 OMB Passback for PSS
Please clarify whether NCES is planning to offer any web version of the questionnaire for the next round of PSS. If not this time, since it will have been quite a few years since NCES evaluated such an option, when next will NCES explore a web option?
NCES will offer a web version of the PSS questionnaire as an option in 2011-12 and anticipates collecting approximately 25% of the responses by this option.
When is the last time the 9 categories of private schools were explicitly revisited with advisors, including not only the categories but the terminology? If not since 1987, OMB would like to see NCES’s plans to revisit.
The typology categories were discussed with representatives of the private school associations that attended the last NCES private schools meeting (November 2009). NCES is currently exploring alternative ways of defining/labeling the three “Other Religious” categories in the typology. NCES plans to discuss this again with private school representatives at the next NCES private schools meeting (September 2010).
For what purposes is the detailed list of religious association affiliations collected?
Association membership, both religious and nonsectarian associations, is used to categorize private schools. NCES reports private school data by association membership (see http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/tables/table_2008_14.asp). Association membership is also one of the search criteria that can be used in the Private School Search tool on the NCES website (see http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/). Religious association membership is the variable used to classify “Other Religious” schools into three categories in the NCES typology.
When was the last time that NCES reviewed its list of educational associations to make sure they were current and adequately inclusive?
The entire list of associations was checked prior to the 2009-10 PSS to make sure that all listed associations were still currently operating. After every PSS data collection, the write-in responses for association membership are reviewed for possible new associations to be included in the next PSS association list. Otherwise, if NCES is contacted regarding associations which are not on the list or that have closed, the matter is investigated.
| File Type | application/msword |
| Author | joconnell |
| Last Modified By | #Administrator |
| File Modified | 2010-06-30 |
| File Created | 2010-05-18 |