Additional Response to OMB Comments

Additional passback from OMB

We also would like to see the revised confidentiality language in the FAQs that should correspond to these letters.

The FAQ’s are located on page two of the letters. We are enclosing the revised versions of the letters with the acting commissioner’s signature as an attachment that accompanies this response. Scroll down to view the FAQ’s in the attachments.

 

Q1 – We intentionally asked the question about SASS, not about TFS. Please answer the question for SASS. What does NCES know about how accurately SASS schools report teachers' total experience and other items used for the SASS teacher listing operation?

According to Randy Parmer, the mathematical statistician at the Census Bureau who worked on this, “We did look at the question pertaining to whether the teacher was expected to leave or stay at the school. This research was conducted as part of the 2006 SASS test. Attached are the results. The relevant section is related to the referenced "Issue 1".

(See attached file: TLF_Analysis.doc)

After 2000 SASS, we did research on the TLF accuracy of race reporting and determined

it was not accurate. I don't believe this was ever written up. Subsequently, race was

dropped.

As far as I know, the only other research related to the TLF that has ever been done was the Teacher List Validation Study conducted around 1992 or 1993. That research pertained mostly to the coverage of the TLF and not the accuracy of the data reported.”

 

Q2 – We were interested in response rates by each of the 5 categories of teachers (eg, new stayer) listed in the SS. Please provide. What was the response rate for each teacher group in SASS?

Public Private BIA

A - New Stayer 84.5% 78.3% 82.9%

B - Experienced stayer 84.0% 77.3% 82.0%

C - New leaver 74.4% 71.6% 100%

D - Mid-career leaver 76.8% 75.9% 49.9%

E - Highly experienced leaver 86.9% 76.7% 67.0%

Please note that the BIA teacher group is rather small and more subject to response rate variability.

 

Q5 -- NCES should send the user name and password in two separate emails.  Please clarify this change in the supporting statement.

We will send two emails, one with the username and another with the password.

 

Q7 – We are surprised and disappointed that NCES decided to ignore the previous terms of clearance and we will issue new ones for this collection that require NCES to conduct such analysis after the fact if any unexpected changes should occur.

No response required as per a telephone message from Michelle Coon.

 

Q8 – The letters should be under the Acting Commissioner’s signature. We are fine with including a staff contact in the body of the letter.

As stated above, revised letters are attached with the acting commissioner’s signature.

 

Q 14 – We encourage NCES to explore using automated features of the web survey for the purposes of tracking respondent response times. In addition, we are willing to allow NCES to ask a small sample of individuals to track their time on the questionnaire, but may not ask it of everyone. Please propose a reasonable sample size. 

We will remove the question about how much time it took to complete the questionnaire on all of the hard-copy questionnaires (item #20, p. 15 of the TFS-2, #20, p. 14 of the TFS-3, #34, p. 22 of the TFS-2L, and #43, p. 25 of the TFS-3L) as well as the note in the instructions about keeping track of the time it takes to complete the questionnaire (page 4 on all questionnaires). Timing will not be tracked on the Internet instrument(s), either.

Additional question – Is there anything in the instruments that could be expected to give insight into the influence of scholarships, grants or loan forgiveness, separately from general issues of financial burden, on teacher retention?  If not, did NCES consider such additions?

We briefly considered adding questions relating to various types of financial stress for new teachers, but in the end, decided not to add any items. This topic is covered in the Baccalaureate and Beyond study (where the respondents are drawn from the National Postsecondary Financial Aid Study). There are several questions in the B&B inquiring as to the students’ receipt of scholarships and financial aid.

 

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