Att_OMB-NLTS-Recruiting-PartA 1-31-11
Att_OMB-NLTS-Recruiting-PartA 1-31-11.docx
National Educational Study of Transition
OMB: 1850-0882
Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012
Part A
CONTENTS
PART A: SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSION NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL TRANSITION STUDY (NLTS) 2012
A. JUSTIFICATION
1. Circumstances Necessitating Collection of Information
2. Purposes and Uses of Data
3. Use of Technology to Reduce Burden
4. Efforts to Avoid Duplication of Effort
5. Methods of Minimizing Burden on Small Entities
6. Consequences of Not Collecting Data
7. Special Circumstances
8. Federal Register Announcement and Consultation
9. Payment or Gift to Respondents
10. Confidentiality of the Data
11. Additional Justification for Sensitive Questions
12. Estimates of Hours Burden
13. Estimate of Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents or Recordkeepers
14. Estimates of Annualized Cost to the Federal Government
15. Reasons for Program Changes or Adjustments
16. Tabulation, Publication Plans, and Time Schedules
17. Approval Not to Display the Expiration Date for OMB Approval
18. Exception to the Certification Statement
Appendix A: Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, Section 664(e)
Appendix B: Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, Section 664(a)
Appendix C: Federal Register Notice
Appendix D: Recruiting Materials and Protocol
Appendix E: Mathematica Confidentiality Pledge
PART A:
SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT
SUBMISSION
NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL TRANSITION STUDY (NLTS) 2012
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is requesting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearance for the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) 2012, a five-year longitudinal study focused on the educational and transitional experiences of youth with disabilities between the ages of 13 and 21. This study is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research and its partners, the Institute on Community Integration, and Decision Information Resources (DIR), under contract with ED (contract number ED-IES-10-C-0073).
The main objectives of the study are to describe the background, secondary school, transition, and postsecondary experiences, and outcomes of youth who receive special education services and to gauge how the experiences of these youth differ from: (1) those who have no identified disability, (2) those who do not receive special education services but who have a condition that qualifies them for accommodation under Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and (3) similar cohorts of youth receiving special education with disability studied in the past.
The study will provide policymakers and educators with critical information that is not available from other sources. The study will provide up to date information on the barriers and challenges youth with disabilities encounter during and after high school; the services and support they receive to help them overcome these barriers from their families, community service providers, secondary and postsecondary schools, and employers; and the extent to which youth make a successful transition to postsecondary education, employment, and independent living. The study will examine these issues from multiple perspectives including those of school staff, parents, and the youth themselves. By comparing the experiences of a current cohort to those of previous cohorts, the study will be able to describe changes in the composition of students with disabilities over time as well as changes in their school experiences and outcomes.
A national probability sample of 15,000 students will be selected and recruited in two stages. The study team will first select and recruit a nationally representative sample of approximately 300 school districts (from a pool of approximately 450 sampled districts); then the team will sample and recruit students from the 300 districts that have agreed to participate. The first wave of data collection will begin in January 2012 and the second in January 2014, when sample members will be between 13 and 21 and 15 and 23 years old, respectively.
The study data collection will draw on the following data sources each of which provide valuable information:
Parent interviews will provide information on the characteristics of the family and youth (for example how their disabilities affect their ability to perform various tasks), parents educational expectations for their child, parent’s involvement in and perceptions of the transition planning process and supports their child receives in school.
Youth interviews will provide information on their experiences and perceptions of school, their career and educational expectations, their engagement in school, and other key outcomes.
Principal surveys will cover school policies, programs, staffing levels, and other resources available in the school.
Teacher surveys completed both by the language arts or mathematics teacher of each sample member and a special education teacher who is most familiar with each special education student’s school program will provide information on the student’s program of study, the classroom setting and the student’s classroom participation, the student’s participation in transition planning and activities designed to help them apply to postsecondary programs and jobs, and the services and other accommodations received by the student.
Student school records will provide more detailed information on key outcomes (including attendance, courses taken, and test scores).
This OMB clearance request is the first of three for this study. The study schedule requires that district and school recruitment begin as early this spring as possible. This request seeks clearance for (1) the sample design and protocols for recruiting school districts into the study and (2) the process for securing from the selected school districts lists of students necessary to select the student sample and the contact information necessary to contact the parents of selected students and/or the students themselves in the case of students 18 or older. The second clearance package, which ED plans to submit in spring 2011, will include all protocols and instruments for securing informed consent and conducting baseline data collection (which will begin in early 2012) and a more detailed analysis plan. The third clearance package, which is scheduled to be submitted in spring 2013, will include the follow-up data collection instruments (for surveys that will begin in early 2014). Initiating district recruitment in the spring of 2011 is critical to the goal of achieving a high rate of district participation and thereby minimizing the potential for nonresponse bias from district refusals. The study team plans to contact all districts before the summer recess and to continue the recruitment effort over the summer.
The study design and data collections described here are similar to prior longitudinal studies of students with disabilities conducted by ED but attempts to improve on them by 1) using innovative methods of securing parental consent for youth participation to improve participation, 2) limiting in school data collection and spreading the burden across schools in districts with multiple middle and high schools, 3) including students without IEPs (including both those with conditions that qualify them for a Section 504 plan as well as those with no disabilities), and 4) seeking more information on student barriers and activities that support transition.
A. JUSTIFICATION
1. Circumstances Necessitating Collection of Information
a. Statement of Need for Data Collection
More than 2.7 million youth with disabilities between the ages of 13 and 21 receive special education services funded under Part B of IDEA. In addition to the challenges all youth encounter as they leave high school and become young adults, this group faces barriers related to health, social isolation, service needs, and access to supports.
The 2004 authorization of IDEA was signed into law (P.L. 108-446) on December 3, 2004. Section 664(e) of IDEA 2004 authorizes studies and evaluations of transitional services and results, including postsecondary placement and employment, for individuals with disabilities identified for services under IDEA (Appendix A). Section 664(a) of IDEA 2004 instructs the Secretary of Education to delegate responsibility for such studies to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES); see Appendix B. The findings from this study will complement those from other IES studies initiated under Section 664 of IDEA 2004 as well as previous studies supported by ED. The study will provide critical information on the characteristics of youth receiving special education services under IDEA, their courses of study, the transition and other services and accommodations they receive, the barriers and challenges they face, and their postsecondary education and employment outcomes.
Findings will help to address a national goal of significantly increasing the numbers of students entering and completing postsecondary education.
b. Overview of Study Design and Research Questions
The study will obtain information on three broad areas important for understanding the experiences of transition-age youth: (1) the characteristics of youth and their families; (2) the experiences of youth in high school (including their academic program and the services they receive to support acquisition of academic proficiencies as well as transition); and (3) youth outcomes (high school completion status, access to postsecondary education and employment, persistence in postsecondary education and employment, integration into the community, and access to and use of services to support positive outcomes). The research questions are summarized below in Table A.1.
In addition to describing a current cohort of transition-age students receiving special education, the study will provide the only available information specifically on the characteristics, transition experiences, and outcomes of students with Section 504 plans. Information on a national probability sample of transition age students without disability from the same school districts as the special education student sample will provide a benchmark for assessing national progress in meeting the academic and other needs of all students, and a base of information for better understanding the pathways youth follow as the move from high school to young adulthood.
Finally, the comparisons between a current cohort of special education students and a prior cohort who were transition-age in 2001 provides a basis for assessing how the experiences and outcomes of youth with disabilities are changing, gauging the effectiveness of efforts over the last decade to ensure that all students have access to a rigorous academic program, and developing new programs and policies to support national goals.
The national probability sample of 15,000 students will include several important subgroups. The majority of the sample will consist of approximately 12,000 students who have been identified as needing special education services; that is, students who have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Within this group of 12,000 students, the sample will be stratified by the federal disability categories (such as those with learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, mental retardation, etc) in order to understand the experiences of each of these diverse groups. This sample allocation will facilitate comparisons with the previous NLTS studies, thereby supporting comparisons in the experiences and outcomes of these subgroups of students over time .
Table A.1. NLTS 2012 Research Questions
1. |
What are the personal, family, and school characteristics of youth with disabilities, ages 13 to 21, who receive special education services under IDEA? |
2. |
What services and accommodations do they receive, what are their courses of study, and what barriers and challenges do they encounter? How do these services, courses of study, and barriers vary by subgroup such as type of disability, age, sex, and race/ethnicity? |
3. |
What are the key academic, social, and economic outcomes for youth with disabilities? |
4. |
What are the characteristics, school and transition experiences and post secondary school outcomes of youth with plans for accommodations under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973? |
5. |
How does receipt of services and accommodations, course of study, and key outcomes for youth who receive special education services differ from students with Section 504 plans and students receiving neither special education services nor protection under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973? |
6. |
How does receipt of services and accommodations and youth outcomes of the current cohort of special education students differ from those of previous cohorts of special education students? |
7. |
How do academic, social, and economic outcomes for youth with disabilities vary by their course of study and receipt of services and accommodations, accounting for preexisting youth characteristics? |
In addition the study will collect information on two other groups of students whose experiences will be contrasted with those of students with IEPs. The remaining 3,000 students in the sample will include (1) a group of approximately 500 students who do not have an IEP but have received accommodations under Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and (2) a group of 2,500 students with neither an IEP nor a section 504 plan. The student sample will be selected from a first stage sample of approximately 300 public school districts recruited for the study.
The sampling design balances several objectives but places the highest priority on obtaining precise overall estimates for all students with IEPs. Another priority is obtaining precise estimates for each of the federally defined disability categories. Other priorities for which precision is somewhat lower are obtaining estimates for the Section 504 students and students with no identified disability, and estimating the magnitude in the differences in characteristics, experiences and outcomes among the various subgroups considered.
As noted above, the data collection will draw on interviews with parents and youth, surveys of teachers of each sampled student, and a survey of the principal of each school attended by a student sample member. Parents will be asked to provide information about the student’s disability profile, services related to a disability received as a young child, as well as a variety of family background characteristics. Youth will be asked about their experiences and outcomes. The surveys of teachers will focus on the classes, services, accommodations, and transitional activities of the youth sample member. The survey of principals will focus on the characteristics of the school and school environment. Additional information on the characteristics of the youth and his or her school program and academic outcomes will be obtained from school administrative records.
IES has included an option in the contract for NLTS 2012 to conduct direct assessments of students’ academic proficiencies, the functional proficiencies of students not able to complete a direct assessment, and a social-emotional assessment for all students. If IES exercises this option, in-person direct assessments will be conducted with each sample member at either the baseline or first follow-up data collection points, depending upon when the sample member is 16 to 18 years old (or, for students at the oldest and youngest points of the age range, when the student is closest to the age 16 to 18 range). Details will be presented in subsequent OMB requests for clearance.
2. Purposes and Uses of Data
NLTS 2012 is a strategic expansion of the NLTS research conducted between 1987 and 1993 and of the NLTS-2 conducted from 2001 through 2009. Analysis of NLTS and NLTS-2 data covered a wide range of outcomes, including school performance and school completion, social integration, arrest rates, employment status and quality, and independent functioning. The study examined trends in these outcomes as well as in the background characteristics and school experiences of youth with disabilities. The studies examined how outcomes and school experiences varied by subgroups defined by students’ disability category, income, race, and gender.
A major challenge in developing policies and improving practice to assist transition-age youth is securing reliable and complete information on their diverse needs, school experiences, and postsecondary paths. The primary data sources to date have been the longitudinal surveys of special education students funded by ED, the NLTS and NLTS-2. The current study will focus on a new cohort of special education students, to assess their needs and determine how much progress has been made addressing them. While the focus of the study will be similar in some respects to NLTS-2, the study will also address new policy priorities.
The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was intended to improve the education of disadvantaged students, including those with disabilities, by holding districts accountable for their academic proficiency. The 2004 amendments to IDEA continued the emphasis on access to the general curriculum and accountability standards for students with disabilities. The IDEA amendments were part of a broader disability policy reform effort to support independent living and employment, reflecting the intent of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, including implementation of the 1999 Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act and new disability provisions in the Workforce Investment Act. The emphasis these policies place on preparing students for postsecondary education and employment, have heightened the interest in understanding and addressing the array of barriers students face as they leave high school and consider various educational and career options. New data are needed to understand the challenges youth encounter as they prepare for postsecondary education and careers. The study will examine the school experiences and outcomes of special education students and how they are changing. The study will allow federal and state policymakers to gauge progress in meeting the goals of NCLB and IDEA and the needs of transition-age youth with disabilities, and it will inform their efforts to improve programs and services. It will also inform the efforts of special educators and other service providers charged with assisting out-of-school youth with disabilities, as well as youth and their parents, to understand needs and improve practices.
3. Use of Technology to Reduce Burden
The evaluation will use a combination of mechanical and electronic technology to collect data. For each data collection task, the study team has selected the form of technology that will provide reliable information while minimizing respondent burden. This submission focuses primarily on the earliest study tasks: selection and recruitment of districts, obtaining de-identified lists of students with information necessary to perform stratification of the student sample, and obtaining the names and other contact information for students selected for the study sample. Subsequent submissions will provide protocols for obtaining consent and collecting data from parents, students, and school staff.
The study team will take full advantage of information technology when it recruits districts and acquires their lists of students and teachers for sampling purposes. The team will establish a receipt control system and populate it with the most up-to-date contact information for districts before beginning the recruiting calls. They will use the same system to generate introductory letters and prompts for follow-up contacts with district personnel. Study staff will input the status of each contact with the school district. The system will also track information on the status and receipt of lists for sampling purposes.
The team will create a special email account and toll-free number to facilitate communications with districts. Districts can choose either to email or call the study team. The team will establish individual websites for each school district. These sites will be password protected and will allow districts to securely upload and download only their own lists of students. Once on the network, the lists are secure and protected. Similarly, when the team requests lists of students and teachers, districts can upload and download those lists to the same website.
Information technology will also be used in other data collection tasks (for which clearance will be requested in a subsequent submission). Parent and student surveys will use computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI). The study team will digitally record parent and student consent conveyed verbally over the telephone. Teacher and principal surveys will use web-based data collection. These procedures will be described fully in the next OMB submission when clearance is requested to secure parent and/or student consent and conduct the surveys.
4. Efforts to Avoid Duplication of Effort
The long term follow-up for the NLTS-2, which followed a sample of students between 13 and 16 years of age and had IEPs in December 2001, ended in 2009. NLTS 2010 will be the only comprehensive source of data on students who are ages 13 to 21 and have IEPs in December 2011 that includes information collected from youth, their parents, and their teachers. It will also be the only source of information on a national probability sample of youth with and without disabilities who are in the same school districts.
5. Methods of Minimizing Burden on Small Entities
Some of the districts and schools from which the study team will collect information are small entities. Building on the experience of NLTS 2 and HSLS:2009, NLTS 2012 has been designed with an eye to minimizing the burden on individual entities both by making the requests for data on individual students efficient and by distributing the student sample across schools in a manner designed to keep the burden on individual schools to the minimum necessary. In contrast to HSLS:2009 in which schools are the first stage of sample selection, the first stage sampling unit in NLTS 2012 will be the school district or, in the case of districts having fewer than 100 students with an IEP, groups of districts (see section B.2). Furthermore, we estimate that the student sample of 15,000 will be selected from approximately 7,500 schools. We believe the small number of students per school will minimize burden on any individual school and increase the likelihood districts and school staff will agree to participate in the study. This approach also reduces overall burden of the study to the extent that using districts rather than schools as the first-stage sampling unit reduces the effects of clustering (and thereby improves precision).
During recruiting, the team will minimize burden by training recruitment staff to make their requests as straightforward and concise as possible. The recruitment mailings and telephone protocols are designed to be clear, brief, and informative. The team will carefully specify the data requests and send clear instructions. During the initial contacts with districts, the team will describe all data needed over the course of the study so that the districts can fit the requests into their operating schedules. Examples of the letter requesting district participation, information about the study, and instructions for transmitting data are in Appendix D. The study team will limit the burden for school districts by requesting only the information that is required for the study. Districts will be asked to provide only a single sample frame list of students that shows each student’s federal disability category and status as a student protected by a Section 504 plan. Once students are sampled, the study team will request information on the teachers of those students. After students are sampled, the sample will not be altered or refreshed.
The study team will accept electronic rosters of students in any format from districts rather than ask districts to use specific software or formats. Initially, the study team will ask for de-identified lists of students so the school district does not have to obtain informed consent prior to supplying the team with the sample frame.
Teacher and principal surveys take 30 minutes, on average; to minimize burden, teachers and principals will be asked to complete their questionnaires after school hours and therefore will be compensated for their time. Because the data collections are web based, respondents can complete the questionnaire at a time and place that is convenient. To avoid disrupting school routines, the study team will not interview students in school. Subsequent submissions will contain more detailed explanations of steps to reduce burden on schools.
6. Consequences of Not Collecting Data
The data collection described in this submission is necessary to understand the barriers youth with disabilities face as they transition from school to adulthood and to determine how these barriers are currently addressed. Understanding the barriers that youth face and the ways service providers (including schools, community organizations, and postsecondary schools) and employers deal with them can inform efforts to improve special education services and help youth make successful transitions to adulthood.
Recruiting districts into the study is indispensable because the districts and lists of their students provide the sampling frame for data collections that follow. As mentioned earlier, due to the longitudinal nature of the study, the study will request lists of students from districts just once.
Future submissions will describe the other specific data collections in more detail. The key features of the data collection plan are as follows:
Principal are surveyed once. Principals describe the policy, environment, and school-wide programs of each sampled student’s school.
The language arts education or mathematics teacher survey is also conducted once. These teachers will describe their instructional approach as well as the participation, attendance, and engagement of each sampled student.
The special education teacher survey is conducted at baseline for all special education students and again in spring 2014 for students who are still in school. This survey will describe the students’ overall academic program, the services and accommodations they receive, and their transition activities.
Parent/student surveys are conducted twice. They will provide information on students’ experiences and supports in school and at home, parent and student expectations, and the postsecondary and employment outcomes of youth.
7. Special Circumstances
There are no special circumstances involved with the recruitment of school districts for NLTS 2012.
8. Federal Register Announcement and Consultation
a. Federal Register
A 60-day notice to solicit public comments was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, November 23, 2010. No comments we received. A copy of the notice is in Appendix C. A 30-day notice to solicit public comments will be published in the Federal Register on [Fill DATE]. Any comments received in the first comment period will be addressed prior to submission to the OMB.
b. Consultations Outside the Agency
During preparation of the study design and data collection plan for this evaluation, ED has sought professional counsel from a number of people. The following are the key study staff at Mathematica and the Institute on Community Integration:
John Burghardt, Ph.D. Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator 609-275-2395 |
David Johnson, Ph.D. Co-Principal Investigator and Task Leader, Analysis Plan and Reports 612-624-1062 |
Joshua Haimson, Ph.D. Deputy Project Director and Task Leader, Data Analysis 609-275-2208 |
Anne B. Ciemnecki, MA Survey Director 609-275-2323 |
Martha Thurlow, Ph.D. Task Leader, Youth Assessment Analysis Tasks 612-624-4826 |
Francis Potter, Ph.D. Task Leader, Sample Selection 609-936-2799 |
|
Eric Zeidman, Ed.M. Task Leader, District Recruitment 609-936-2784 |
In addition, ED will consult with eight researchers who will make up the project’s Technical Working Group (TWG). The group will meet for the first of four times in February 2011.
Brian Cobb Interim Associate Director College of Applied Human Sciences School of Education, Room 105J Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523-1588 970-491-6835 |
Barbara Altman Consultant Retired Special Assistant on Disability Statistics Office of the Director National Center for Health Statistics, CDC 14608
Melinda Lane
|
Richard Luecking President, Transcen 451 Hungerford Drive, Suite 700 Rockville, MD 20850 301-424-2002 ext. 230 |
Suzanne Lane School of Education University
of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 412-648-7095 |
Tom Bailey Community College Research Center Teachers College, Columbia University 525 West 120th Street 439 Thorndike Hall, Box 174 New York, NY 10027 212-678-3091 |
Judy Elliott, Ph.D. Chief Academic Officer Los Angeles Unified School District 333 South Beaudry Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90017 213-241-1000
|
Kalman Rupp Economist Division of Policy Evaluation Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics Social Security Administration 202-358-6216 |
Markay Winston Director of Student Services Cincinnati Public School District P.O. Box 5381, 2651 Burnet Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45219 513-363-0300 |
c. Unresolved Issues
There are no unresolved issues.
9. Payment or Gift to Respondents
The study will not offer gifts to school districts. For future surveys, the study will partially compensate parents, students, teachers, and principals for their time. Subsequent OMB submissions will explain and justify these survey respondent payments.
10. Confidentiality of the Data
The study team will conduct the recruitment of school districts and sampling of youth (the focus of this OMB clearance request) and the parent, youth, principal and teacher surveys (which will be the focus of subsequent clearance requests) in accordance with all relevant regulations and requirements. These include the Education Sciences Institute Reform Act of 2002, Title I, Part E, Section 183, that requires “[all] collection, maintenance, use, and wide dissemination of data by the Institute … to conform with the requirements of section 552 of Title 5, United States Code, the confidentiality standards of subsections (c) of this section, and sections 444 and 445 of the General Education Provisions Act (20 U.S.C. 1232 g, 1232h).” These citations refer to the Privacy Act, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.
In addition, for student information, the project director will ensure that all individually identifiable information about students, their academic achievements, and their families and information with respect to individual schools shall remain confidential in accordance with Section 552a of Title 5, United States Code, the confidentiality standards subsection (c) and sections 444 and 445 of the General Educations Provision Act. Subsection (c) of Section 183, referenced above, requires the director of IES to “develop and enforce standards designed to protect the confidentiality of persons in the collection, reporting, and publication of data.” The study will also adhere to requirements of subsection (d) of Section 183 prohibiting disclosure of individually identifiable information as well as making the publishing or inappropriate communication of individually identifiable information by employees or staff a felony.
Mathematica and its subcontractors will protect the confidentiality of all information collected for the study and will use it for research purposes only. No information that identifies any study participant will be released. Further, personally identifiable data will not be entered into the analysis file; the analysis data records will contain a numeric identifier only. When reporting the results, data will be presented only in aggregate form so that individuals and institutions cannot be identified. The study team will include a statement to this effect with all requests for data, and the teacher questionnaires will include a reminder about confidentiality protection in compliance with the legislation. When data are collected through telephone interviews, the study team will remind respondents about the confidentiality protections, the voluntary nature of the survey, and their right to refuse to answer individual questions. All members of the study team having access to confidential data will be trained on the importance of confidentiality and data security. All data will be kept in secured locations, and identifiers will be destroyed as soon as they are no longer required.
Mathematica and its subcontractors will employ the following safeguards to carry out confidentiality assurances during the study:
All employees at Mathematica and its subcontractors sign a confidentiality pledge emphasizing the importance of confidentiality and describing their obligation to it (Appendix E).
Access to identifying information about sample members is limited to those staff members who have direct responsibility for providing and maintaining sample locating information. At the conclusion of the research, these data are destroyed.
Identifying information is maintained in separate forms and files, which are linked only by sample identification number.
Access to the file linking sample identification numbers with the respondents’ IDs and contact information is limited to a small number of individuals who have a need to know this information.
Access to the hard-copy documents is strictly limited. Documents are stored in locked files and cabinets. Discarded materials are shredded.
Computer data files are protected with passwords, and access is limited to specific users. Especially sensitive data are maintained on removable storage devices that are kept physically secure when not in use.
The Privacy Act of 1974 applies to this data collection. Mathematica and its subcontractors will make certain that all surveys are held in strict confidence, as described above, and that in no instance will responses be made available except in tabular form. Under no condition will information be made available to school personnel. District and school staff responsible for assisting Mathematica in the data collection will be fully informed of Mathematica’s policies and procedures regarding confidentiality of data.
In addition, the following verbatim language will appear on all letters, brochures, and other study materials:
Per the policies and procedures required by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, Title I, Part E, Section 183, responses to this data collection will be used only for statistical purposes. The reports prepared for this study will summarize findings across the sample and will not associate responses with a specific district or individual. We will not provide information that identifies you or your district to anyone outside the study team, except as required by law. Any willful disclosure of such information for nonstatistical purposes, without the informed consent of the respondent, is a class E felony.
11. Additional Justification for Sensitive Questions
The purpose of the study is to examine the school experiences and outcomes of 13- to 21-year-olds identified as needing special education services and to compare them with a sample of other youth, including some who have Section 504 plans. Therefore, obtaining information about potentially sensitive topics, such as the IEP and Section 504 status of individuals, is central to the study. The study team needs information on IEP and Section 504 status from school districts to ensure that the sample includes adequate numbers of these students. The study team also needs information on students’ type of disability to ensure that the sample includes sufficient numbers of students in each disability type or subgroup. The team will request de-identified data for the entire sample frame and collect identifying information only on students selected for the survey sample.
The parent and student surveys, which will be further explained in subsequent OMB submissions, will include some questions that may be considered sensitive (such as questions about the functional abilities of youth, their social skills, and their involvement with the criminal justice system). The surveys will not ask for sensitive information that can be gathered from other sources. The study team will adapt many of the questions without modification from other national OMB approved surveys of similar populations such as the NLTS, the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD), and the Short Form 12 (SF-12).
12. Estimates of Hours Burden
The study team estimates approximately 18,465 hours of burden for the sample selection tasks (see Table A.2 below). The team will begin by contacting 450 school districts to secure participation of 300 districts in the study. An additional 150 districts will comprise a reserve sample in case district participation is lower than planned. Discussions about the study will take up to one hour per district (total of 600 hours covering both the initial 450 districts and the 150 reserve districts). The three hundred who agree to participate will be asked to upload a de-identified list of students that will form the sample frame for the study. The study team anticipates that creating and uploading the sample frame will take on average about 16 hours per district (total of 4,800 hours). After the student sample has been selected, the team will ask the district to provide contact information for the selected students and their parents as well as the names of each student’s language arts and/or special education teacher, and school principal. Based on Mathematica’s experience requesting similar information on many studies, we anticipate that some districts will require parental consent before they provide student contact information or information on who are the student’s teachers. The team estimates 30 minutes of burden for consent gathering for each of 65 students per district requiring advance consent and 10 minutes per study district to provide detailed contacts and teacher names for each of 65 students. While our experience conducting similar tasks in numerous school districts, leads us to anticipate that up to 120 districts will require consent in advance of providing contact information and teacher names, for purposes of estimating burden, we have conservatively assumed that all 300 districts agreeing to participate will require such advance consent.
All recruiting will take place during 2011. The spring 2011 OMB submission will contain the instruments for baseline data collection and estimates of the burden associated with the parent, youth, teacher, and principal surveys and school records collection, and the spring 2013 submission will contain similar information for the first follow-up data collection.
Table A.2. 2011 Burden Associated With Sample Selection
Activities |
Number of Respondents |
Total Number of Responses |
Average Burden Hours per Response |
Total Burden Hours |
Discussion the study with all sampled districts |
600 |
600 |
1 |
600 |
Districts that agree to participate upload de-identified sample frame |
300 |
300 |
16 |
4,800 |
Obtain consent for 65 selected students in districts that require consent to release information |
300 |
300 |
32.5 |
9,750 |
Provide contact information for 65 selected students @ .17 hours per student |
300 |
300 |
11 |
3,315 |
Total |
|
|
|
18,465 |
13. Estimate of Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents or Recordkeepers
There are no direct costs to individual district staff members.
14. Estimates of Annualized Cost to the Federal Government
The estimated cost to the federal government for the study—including recruiting districts, designing and administering all collection instruments, processing and analyzing the data, and preparing reports—is $14,659,647, distributed as follows:
Year 1 |
2011 |
$1,869,149 |
Year 2 |
2012 |
$5,856,522 |
Year 3 |
2013 |
$1,416, 380 |
Year 4 |
2014 |
$4,333,797 |
Year 5 |
2015 |
$1,183,799 |
Total |
|
$14,659,647 |
Recruiting school districts will be carried out in 2011 at a cost of $1,087,174.
15. Reasons for Program Changes or Adjustments
This is a new project.
16. Tabulation, Publication Plans, and Time Schedules
The study team will use the data collected at the baseline and first follow-up points to describe the youth and family characteristics; school programs, services, and accommodations for the youth; and youth outcomes. The exact measures will be determined as the study data collection instruments are developed and will be covered in OMB submissions for baseline data collection and first follow-up data collection. Table A.3 below lists the broad domains in which information will be collected and illustrates how the information will be reported in IES reports on the study.
Table A.3. Characteristics, School Programs, and School Outcomes at Baseline for Special Education Students by Age Group
|
13–15 |
16–18 |
19–21 |
13–21 |
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Youth and Family Characteristics |
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Youth characteristics |
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Household characteristics |
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Disability profiles |
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Functional abilities of youth |
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Daily living and social skills |
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Postsecondary expectations |
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School Program, Services, Accommodations |
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Education history |
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Types of school(s) attended |
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School policies, environment |
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Courses completed (subject, general education, special education) |
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Instructional approach, setting |
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Youth classroom participation |
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Services, supports, accommodations |
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IEP development, transition planning, career exploration |
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Assistance applying to postsecondary programs and jobs |
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Youth Outcomes |
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Attendance and engagement |
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Grades, test scores |
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Postsecondary education, training |
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Employment and earnings |
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Receipt of Social Security Insurance, health insurance, other benefits |
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Social adjustment and independence |
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Violence, arrests, incarceration |
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Unweighted Sample Size |
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Table A.3 illustrates the kinds of tabulations that will be reported for students who receive special education services. Basic tabulations of means or distributions of attributes, as appropriate, will be presented for special education students by age at baseline and for all special education students ages 13 to 21. All tabulations will be weighted to reflect individual students’ selection probability and nonresponse adjustments. Standard errors of estimates will also be calculated (accounting appropriately for the two stage and stratified nature of the sample). Because interest centers on the variability of the characteristics, school experiences, and outcomes within and across the federal disability subgroups, the study team will provide similar information for each subgroup.
Tabulations like those shown in Table A.4 will be generated to compare the characteristics, school experiences, and outcomes of special education students with those of students not identified for special education services.
Table A.4. Characteristics, School Programs, and Outcomes at Baseline of Special Education Students and Students Not Identified for Special Education Services
|
Special Education
Students |
Students With A Section
504 |
Students With No
Disability And No Section 504 Plan |
All Students Not
Identified For Special Education |
Youth and Family Characteristics |
||||
Youth characteristics |
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Household characteristics |
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Violence, arrests, incarceration |
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Unweighted Sample Size |
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Tabulations like those displayed in Table A.5 will be used to compare selected characteristics, school experiences, and outcomes of the cohorts of students identified for special education services in the NLTS, the NLTS-2, and NLTS 2012. NLTS includes a sample of students ages 13 to 21 who were receiving special education services in 1987. NLTS-2 includes a sample of students ages 13 to 16 who were receiving special education services in 2001, and NLTS 2012 will include a sample of students ages 13 to 21 who are receiving special education services in fall 2011. The comparisons across these three cohorts will focus on the subset of sample members who were 13- to 16-years-old at the point of sample selection in order to eliminate age as a source of between year variations.
Table A.5. Characteristics, School Experiences, and Outcomes of Students Receiving Special Education Services in 1987, 2001, and 2010
|
Special Education Students
|
Special Education Students
|
Special Education Students
|
Youth and Family Characteristics |
|||
Youth characteristics |
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Household characteristics |
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Violence, arrests, incarceration |
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Unweighted Sample Size |
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Study Schedule
Table A.6 summarizes the schedule for OMB clearance, sample selection, baseline data collection, follow-up data collection, and production of the baseline and follow-up reports.
Table A.6 NLTS Timeline for Data Collection and Reporting
Study Milestone |
Milestone Date/ Period of Activity |
Submit OMB clearance for study and sample selection |
February 1, 2011 |
Select and recruit districts |
April 15, 2011–December 31, 2011 |
Select student samples |
October 1, 2011–February 2012 |
Submit OMB clearance for baseline data collection |
May 15, 2011 |
Secure consent; collect baseline data |
October 1, 2011–June 30, 2012 |
Publish report on baseline data |
July 31, 2013 |
Submit OMB clearance for first follow-up data collection |
May 15, 2013 |
Collect first follow-up data |
January 1, 2013–June 30, 2014 |
Publish first follow-up report |
July 15, 2015 |
17. Approval Not to Display the Expiration Date for OMB Approval
Approval not to display the expiration date for OMB approval is not requested.
18. Exception to the Certification Statement
No exceptions to the certification statement are requested or required.
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| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 |
| Author | Dawn Patterson |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-02-01 |
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