OMB83 C TOC Memo

U NITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

National Center for Education Statistics

August 26, 2015

MEMORANDUM

To: Shelly Martinez, Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Through: Kashka Kubzdela, NCES

From: Chris Chapman, Andy Zukerberg, Steve Broughman, and Sarah Grady, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES); Ivelisse Martinez-Beck, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Re: Office of Management and Budget terms of clearance for Private School Universe Survey (PSS) 2015-16 Data Collection Amendment Change Request (OMB# 1850-0641 v.6)

In June 2013, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a Notice of Office of Management and Budget Action (NOA) clearing the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to continue work needed for the every-other-year collection of the Private School Universe Survey (PSS). The NOA included terms of clearance to explore the possibility of expanding PSS to collect data on private preschool providers. Since that date, NCES convened meetings with senior staff from OMB, NCES, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Early Learning, the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, the National Center for Special Education Research, and the Budget Service; researchers from the State of Preschool Study, and senior staff from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE).

In April 2015, as part of the Private School Universe Survey (PSS) 2015-16 Data Collection Amendment Change Request (OMB# 1850-0641 v.6), NCES included a memo addressing the 2013 terms of clearance. In the June 2015 NOA issued for the Change Request (OMB# 1850-0641 v.6), OMB issued new terms of clearance requesting an update on efforts to explore enhanced preschool collections. This memo provides the requested update.

NCES and the partner organizations listed above have identified several possibilities for collecting data from preschool providers. Table 1 highlights the options, including the populations that would be covered by each option, whether the collection would be a sample or a census, and notes about the collection. No funding source has been identified to date for a preschool provider collection.

The conversations noted above and the many complexities involved in operationalizing the data collections noted in Table 1 highlight the need for a coordinated effort to look at measures of early childhood education. To this end, NCES will create an interagency group, with the first meeting targeted for February 2016 (pending contract award), to consider current measures of early childhood education in Federal surveys and limitations of these measures in terms of delivering basic information about preschool providers. This group’s first goal will be to identify new items that could be added to current collections and make recommendations for new collections. NCES will provide support for the initial year of the group’s monthly meetings.

Table 1. Options for a Federal Preschool Provider Collection

Description of potential new collections	Sample or census	Populations covered	Populations not covered	Notes
Expand CCD items	census	Preschools that are run through public school districts	Head Start programs that are not run by school districts, other public preschools that are not run by districts, private for-profit preschools, private nonprofit preschools	May be more efficient to conduct a separate operation outside of CCD
Expand PSS to include all private preschools	census	Private preschools that are run through private schools which include at least one of grades K-12	All public preschools, private preschools which are not run through private schools	This would require a major expansion of the PSS frame-building and collections operations. Because the current PSS questionnaire is designed for K-12 institutions, inclusion of all pre-K programs would necessitate the development of a separate pre-K questionnaire
Modify National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) to collect data about center-based care providers only	survey	All public preschools and all private preschools	Other forms of nonparental care, such as home-based care providers, including Head Start-funded home-based care providers	Currently, there are no plans to repeat the collection in the near future and it would require significantly more resources to move from a nationally representative study to one that is at least state representative.
Use the survey design of OPRE's NSECE to collect data about all forms of nonparental care	survey	All public preschools, all private preschools, and all home-based care providers	Not applicable	This would require additional development work to produce instruments for providers outside of formal institutions.

Note: preschool refers to pre-kindergarten programs.

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