NTPS 2017-18 Incentive and TOC Change Memo

U NITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

National Center for Education Statistics

MEMORANDUM

Date: August 31, 2017

To: Robert Sivinski, OMB

From: Amy Ho, NCES

Through: Kashka Kubzdela, NCES

Re: 2017–18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS 2017-18) Incentive and Terms of Clearance (TOC) Change Request (OMB# 1850-0598 v.21)

The National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), conducted biennially by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), is a system of related questionnaires that provides descriptive data on the context of elementary and secondary education. Redesigned from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) with a focus on flexibility, timeliness, and integration with other ED data, the NTPS system allows for school, principal, and teacher characteristics to be analyzed in relation to one another. NTPS is an in-depth, nationally representative survey of first through twelfth grade public school teachers, principals, and schools. Kindergarten teachers in schools with at least a first grade are also surveyed. NTPS utilizes core content and a series of rotating modules to allow timely collection of important education trends as well as trend analysis. Topics covered include characteristics of teachers, principals, schools, teacher training opportunities, retention, retirement, hiring, and shortages. NTPS 2017-18 was approved in June 2017 with the latest change request approved in August 2017 (OMB# 1850-0598 v.18-20). This request is to: (a) revise the form of prepaid incentive; (b) add to recruitment materials the “Initial School Mailout Letter for Schools that Completed the TLF Early”; and (c) fulfill the last OMB terms of clearance (Appendix D).

This request does not introduce changes to respondent burden or the cost to the federal government. The following changes were made to the approved package materials as part of this change request.

Prepaid incentives were approved for NTPS 2017-18 to be distributed as gift cards. However, Census has come across numerous difficulties involving the logistics of the gift cards. To prevent any delays in production, NCES decided to offer the prepaid incentives in cash. Supporting Statement Parts A and B and Appendix A have been revised to reflect this change.

Supporting Statement Part A

The following sentence in section A.9 (page 11) was revised as shown in red font below:

The 2017-18 NTPS will include an incentive experiment designed to examine the effectiveness of offering teachers a monetary incentive to boost overall teacher response. Teachers in the experimental treatment will receive a prepaid cash incentive gift card at the first contact by mail.

Supporting Statement Part B

The following sentence in section B.4.2 (page 23) was revised as shown in red font below:

Teachers in selected non-priority schools will receive a pre-paid $10 cash gift card incentive with their third mail-out or thank-you letter, and teachers in selected priority schools will receive a pre-paid $20 cash gift card incentive with their third mail-out or thank-you letter.

Appendix A

The phrase “gift card” was removed from recruitment materials, so text pertaining to incentives now just refers to the included $[amount].

Additionally, the NTPS Respondent Portal was programmed so that respondents would log out after completing a task, but it was not programmed to turn off the ability to submit data on the Teacher Listing Form (TLF) before it was requested by NTPS staff. As a result, some principals accessed the TLF before we requested them to do so and completed it early. We are thus adding a new version of the Initial School Mailout Letter for the schools that already completed the TLF, in which we have removed the information about completing the TLF (the added letter is on pages 42-43).

Added the following row to the School and Teacher Letters and E-mails Summary Table (page 25):

Initial School Mailout Letter for Schools that Completed the TLF Early

NTPS-11L(P2//C2)

The letter introduces the survey and provides instructions for the package contents, excluding the TLF. The package includes the letter and individual envelopes containing instructions for completing the School Questionnaire and Principal Questionnaire online. Two versions: NTPS-11L(P2) – Principal letter, non-priority school, sent to the principal if a coordinator hasn’t been established. NTPS-11L(C2) – Coordinator letter, non-priority school, sent if a coordinator has been established.

Appendix D

To fulfill the last OMB terms of clearance (TOC) that were provided to NCES as part of the NTPS 2015-16 approval in June 2015 (OMB# 1850-0598 v.11), and which stated that “OMB looks forward to having the results of NCES's adaptive survey design strategies included in its next submission.” we have added to this submission a report of the 2015-16 NTPS adaptive design results (Appendix D – Adaptive Design Report: NTPS 2015-2016 Analysis of Response Rates and Field Collection Experience).

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