OMB83C Change Memo - Revision Option

Memorandum United States Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

National Center for Education Statistics

DATE: August 22, 2017

TO: Robert Sivinski, OMB

THROUGH: Kashka Kubzdela, OMB Liaison, NCES

FROM: Nancy Sharkey, SLDS Program Officer, NCES

Kristen King, SLDS Program Officer, NCES

SUBJECT: Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) Survey 2017-2019 Revision Option Change Request (OMB# 1850-0933 v.4)

As authorized by the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002, Title II, the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Grant Program has awarded competitive, cooperative agreement grants to states since 2005. Through grants and a growing range of services and resources, the program has helped propel the successful design, development, implementation, and expansion of K12 and P-20W (early learning through the workforce) longitudinal data systems. These systems are intended to enhance the ability of States to efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, and use education data, including individual student records. The SLDSs should help states, districts, schools, educators, and other stakeholders to make data-informed decisions to improve student learning and outcomes; as well as to facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps. The SLDS grants extend for three to five years for up to twenty million dollars per grantee, and grantees are obligated to submit annual reports and a final report on the development and implementation of their systems. All 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia are eligible to apply, and each state can apply multiple times to develop different aspects of their data system. Since November 2005, 97 grants have been awarded. In addition to the grants, the program offers many services and resources to assist education agencies with SLDS-related work. Best practices, lessons learned, and non-proprietary products/solutions developed by recipients of these grants and other states are disseminated to aid all state and local education agencies. The request to formalize the annual SLDS Interim Progress Report (IPR) as the SLDS Survey, intended to provide insight on state and U.S. territory SLDS capacity for automated linking of K-12, teacher, postsecondary, workforce, career and technical education (CTE), adult education, and early childhood data, and to conduct the annual SLDS Survey from 2017 through 2019 was approved in February 2017 with the latest change request approved in June 2017 (1850-0933 v.1-3). The SLDS Survey will help inform ongoing evaluation and targeted technical assistance efforts to enhance the quality of the SLDS Program’s support to states.

This request is to allow respondents the option to make update, change, or reconciliation requests to adjust state-specific data reflected in the SLDS Survey public indicator tables. Because the Survey is administered on an annual basis and metrics will be displayed publically on the NCES website, we would like to give respondents the opportunity to modify state-specific data as capacity changes take place within the State to ensure that the SLDS Survey data remain current. We revised the Supporting Statement Part A, section 16 (Time Schedule for SLDS Survey) to reflect the timeframe of the additional data revision opportunity (November 15 – April 1) which will allow respondents to update public data from the current SLDS Survey collection period. Additionally, we added the phrase “& Feedback” and removed the word “Additional” from the “Additional Comments” section of the SLDS Survey Instrument, so that this section now reads “Comments & Feedback”.

This request does not impact the approved response burden or the total cost to the federal government.