School District Records Request

MDRC

16 East 34^th Street

New York, New York 10016

<Date>

<District contact person name and address>

Dear [District Research Staff Member Name],

Thank you for working with us on the Impact Evaluation of Academic Language Intervention (ALI). The ALI study will help determine what types of instruction will best help English Learners (ELs) and other struggling students in the 4^th and 5^th grade improve language skills needed for reading and writing in school. We greatly appreciate the thorough work done by all involved in the study this school year. As agreed upon by your district in [insert month/year], we are reaching out for assistance with accessing student level district data for students participating in the study.

This data request concerns the following schools in your district:

NCES ID

School Name

We appreciate your support and want you to know that we will protect and maintain the confidentiality of the data you provide, to the extent provided by law. Information collected for this study comes under the confidentiality and data protection requirements of the Institute of Education Sciences. All information from this study will be kept confidential as 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. Personally identifiable information about individual respondents will not be reported. We will not provide information that identifies specific individuals, schools, or your district to anyone outside the study team, except as required by law. We are requesting these data solely for use in accordance with the U.S. Department of Education study.

In addition, all staff who are involved in this project have been screened by the federal government in order to work with student-level data and have signed confidentiality agreements. All data files will be stored on a firewall-protected secure server.

We have enclosed a detailed list that covers several types of data (e.g., student characteristics, test scores, attendance, etc.). We are able to work with whatever electronic form is most convenient for your district to prepare (e.g., Access, Excel spreadsheet, dbf file, SAS sd2 file). We will work with you to set up secure electronic transfer of these files. We are eager to work with you and staff in your district to expedite this request and will contact you in the next week to set up a time to answer any questions you may have and discuss this data request

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone or email. <Name of district liaison> will be in touch within the next week to set up a phone appointment with you and/or any other key colleagues to discuss this request in more detail and the second wave of data we are requesting now in particular. In the meantime, if you have questions, please contact XXX or XXX.

Thank you for your cooperation with this request.

Sincerely,

William Corrin

Project Director

MDRC

16 East 34^th Street

New York, NY

Phone: 212-340-8840 | E-Mail: [email protected]

OMB#: 1850-XXXX

^{Expiration Date: XX/XX/20XX}

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 8 hours per response, including time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. The obligation to respond to this collection is voluntary. Send comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to the U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20210-4537 or email [email protected] and reference the OMB Control Number XXXX-XXXX. Note: Please do not return the requested information to this address.

Notice of Confidentiality

Information collected for this study comes under the confidentiality and data protection requirements of the Institute of Education Sciences (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 individual. We will not provide information that identifies specific individuals, schools, or your district to anyone outside the study team, except as required by law.

Student Level Data Request

We recognize that actual available data may vary from this request. Please send this data is whichever electronic format is most convenient for your district. We would like to receive:

• the closest equivalent available measures to those listed below at the student level for all students in the ALI evaluation in your school district for [insert years included in data request];

• the raw numerator and denominator used to calculate the indicated rate or percentage wherever appropriate; for example, the attendance rate can be calculated as the number of days present over all possible days for each student enrolled throughout the school year. We realize that the raw numerator and denominator are not always available, and we will gladly accept the closest equivalent available measures;

• definitions explaining how the indicator is calculated for your district;

• a codebook or similar document that explains the contents of the file;

• a conversion guide between letter and numerical grades (e.g., A= 94-100, A- = 90-93, etc.);

• pass/fail cutoff scores for standardized exams, where applicable.

Student Characteristics

1. NCES school ID

2. School name

3. School year

4. Grade level

5. Student ID (please use the same district ID in all files)

6. Gender

7. Date of birth (actual or month and year)

8. LEP/ELL status

9. ELD level

10. Primary language

11. Language spoken at home

12. Race/Ethnicity codes

13. Special education/IEP status codes (e.g. has an IEP, Yes/No)

14. If student has an IEP, is he or she placed in a self-contained classroom (Y/N)

15. Poverty codes (Free/Reduced price lunch eligibility codes, Title 1 status, or any other poverty measure)

16. Entering or exiting date from each school attended during the school year

Academic Information

1. State achievement exams: if possible, both continuous measures (e.g., a scale score) and categorical measures (e.g., proficient/not proficient), either content based or norm-referenced

2. National achievement exams: continuous, either content based or norm-referenced

3. Standardized end of grade and end of course test scores, with pass/fail cutoff scores where applicable

4. Retention/promotion decision at the end of School Year

Attendance

1. Days enrolled

2. Days absent

3. Days present

Discipline

1. Number of disciplinary referrals

2. In-school suspensions

3. Out of school suspensions