Letter

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION SCIENCES

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NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS

TFS-11(L)
(11-2011)

Dear Principal or School Head,
Last year, your school participated in the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), sponsored
by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). I would like to thank you and your
staff for your cooperation. By sharing information about your professional lives and your
school, you have helped to create reliable, nationally representative data on our nation’s
schools and educators.
One policy question that cannot be addressed with the SASS data is what proportion of
teachers leave classroom teaching from public or private schools. To address this
question, it is important to obtain measures of teacher attrition and retention. In order to
analyze changes in the teacher labor force over time, we are asking your school to
complete the enclosed Teacher Status Form.
This is a voluntary survey and all personally identifiable characteristics may be used only
for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any
other purpose, except as required by law [Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA
2002), 20 U.S.C. § 9573]. Your participation is important in order to analyze changes in
the teacher labor force; however, you may decline to answer either of the two questions
on this form.
For more information about SASS, and to read reports from previous surveys, please visit
our website at http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this important survey effort.
Sincerely,

Jack Buckley
Commissioner for Education Statistics
National Center for Education Statistics

WASHINGTON, DC 20208–5652