This project assesses the feasibility of creating a voluntary, nationwide data dictionary that can be used to standardize the reporting of postsecondary accountability reporting requirements for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (otherwise known as Perkins IV). Variables, field codes, and programming instructions,…

A new online tool called "Science Pipes" allows students to conduct biodiversity investigations. With this free tool, students create and run analyses that would otherwise require access to unwieldy data sets and the ability to write computer code. Using these data, students can conduct guided inquiries or hypothesis-driven research to…

This article offers new directions in measuring racial isolation in schools. The most widely used measurement approach is to examine the mean on the distribution of school percentage non-White across non-White students (the isolation rate) or the percentage of non-White students in schools with large shares of non-Whites (e.g., 90% or more) at a…

Describes a monitoring project by the New York Board of Regents and State Education Department to provide insights into financial problems of independent institutions. Identifies institutions that need assistance and the kinds of assistance needed and provides a basis for protecting sensitive data involving institutions where closure is…

The Foster Care Data Archive is a five-state database that contains foster care career histories for all children who have been placed in a state-supervised substitute-care living arrangement. The Archive was started with five participating states--California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Texas--which together provide services to almost half…

The Foster Care Data Archive is a database containing foster care career histories for all children placed in state-supervised substitute-care living arrangements in California, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New York, and Texas. This update report examines trends in agency caseloads, characteristics of entrants, and duration in care. Part 1…

Data in this computer-based information system are taken from reports provided to the New York State Education Department by degree and certificate awarding institutions through the annual data collection program. The reporting instruments used are the Federal Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) and the State Education Department…

Experiences in systems-development for state information systems are summarized for eight pilot-test state agencies, as part of the State Level Information Base project. Attention is directed to the evaluation of information needs; hardware and software choices; survey administration; data organization, storage, and linkages; and staffing…

Perspectives concerning data collection in postsecondary education management and planning are considered. It is suggested that one of the dangers in data collection operations is collecting data without knowing why. It is argued that unless one knows in advance what is being measured and the purposes of measurement, data should not be collected.…

This paper presents the New York edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook". The 2008 "Yearbook" focuses on how state policies impact the retention of effective new teachers. This policy evaluation is broken down into three areas that encompass 15 goals. Broadly, these goals…

This report presents consultants' recommendations for the statewide collection and entry in the OCLC database of bibliographic data on New York state newspapers as part of a national United States newspaper cataloging project. The consulting team was asked to focus principally on two activities: first, the newspaper collection of the New York…

Papers are presented from a 1978 working conference on measuring financial conditions of colleges and universities. Contents include the following: "The Federal Government's Interest in the Development of Financial Measures" by M. Chandler; "Improving the Conceptual Framework for Measuring Financial Condition Using Institutional…

Workforce development organizations are more and more focused on achieving and documenting performance outcomes; yet managers frequently face a challenge getting buy-in from frontline staff about collecting and using data--not only to satisfy funders' needs but to improve services. "Good Stories Aren't Enough" looks at the experience and…

Accurate measures of transfer are important to the assessment of community college outcomes. This article uses a relatively new database from the National Student Clearinghouse to assess transfer rates at the State University of New York community colleges. Past studies only tracked students within the public sector of a given state. Once…