The National Reporting System (NRS) is the accountability system for the federally funded, State-administered adult education program. It addresses the accountability requirements of the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA-P.L.105-220). This document presents (1) the NRS measures that allow…

Background: Statistics are critical in holding governments accountable for the well-being of citizens with disability. International initiatives are underway to improve the quality of disability statistics, but meaningful ID data is exceptionally rare. Method: The status of ID data was evaluated in a review of 12 national statistical systems.…

Written in response to a request by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) for information on the extent to which federal agencies are not complying with the clearance provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, this brief narrative report presents the results of an Information Management and Technology Division survey of 90 out of 2,551…

This document highlights the problems with current federal education program data collection activities and lists several factors that make movement toward a possible solution, then discusses the vision for the Integrated Performance and Benchmarking System (IPBS), a vision of an Internet-based system for harvesting information from states about…

Questions are raised about the future of research and development evaluation. Without a set of overarching policy questions or theoretical questions, evaluation data are simply not cumulative and cannot be organized into any data base. Education has never been a data-based enterprise. The meaning of evaluation should be broadened to include the…

Highlights lessons learned by a national organization, the Council of Chief State School Officers, in building an education indicator system in cooperation with federal and state education agencies. Issues emphasized are (1) the role of consensus; (2) production of indicators through a cooperative data system; and (3) reporting methods. (SLD)

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Must be in the Front Row!: High Schools, Graduation Rates Receive New Attention from Policy Community and World of…

Provides a concise overview of the role of the federal government in educational statistics and research. Although the scale and methodologies of these projects have increased in size and complexity, federal educational statistical research has never become a significant force in educational reform. (MJP)