The central reports clearance authority of the Federal Government is a legislatively sanctioned mechanism for applying constraints on the conduct of statistical and other data gathering activities by Federal Departments and agencies and other research parties funded by Federal government contracts. General recommendations for improving the overall clearance procedure include (1) redesign of the clearance process to eliminate overlap and duplication; (2) development and implementation of more effective methodologies for determining information requirements and for weighing the cost to the public against values expected from use of the data; (3) decentralization of the routine clearance workload, with a concentrated focus on policy development, oversight, and politically sensitive issues. There must be increased cooperation between the central statistical agency and the educational research community to ensure that the requirements for data reduction and better management of information resources lead to the enhancement of educational research and selective retention of well-designed, useful studies. (Author/CMV)