Response to 60 Day Comments

Paperwork Reduction Act Submission Supporting Statement

Comments Received During the 60-day Public Comment Period

and NCES Responses

April 2017

2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS 2017-18)

ED-2017-ICCD-0007 Comments on FR Doc # 2017-02279

Thank you to both commenters who posted comments in February and March of 2017 responding to a 60-day request for comments on the Department of Education’s 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS 2017-18). The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) appreciates your interest in NTPS. The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) provides an opportunity for an open and public comment period where comments on collections can be made. We received 2 comments, both of which expressed concerns about the frequency of the collection.

NTPS 2017-18 will provide rich data that are generally designed to serve two purposes: descriptive and explanatory. The overall objective of NTPS is to collect the information necessary for a comprehensive picture of elementary and secondary education in the United States. The data collected permit detailed analyses of the characteristics of schools, principals, and teachers. The linkages among the NTPS questionnaires enable researchers to examine the relationships among these elements of education. Collection of these data provide critical information to policymakers and researchers on a variety of topics including school organization, decision making, and recruitment and retention of teachers and principals.

A major component of the redesign of SASS into NTPS was a revision to the collection periodicity. NCES received extensive feedback from policymakers, experts, and researchers in the field that the data collected from SASS every four years were not timely enough to capture more frequent changes in the characteristics of teachers and principals in K-12 education. Because education is driven mostly by state-level decisions and policies, and because in any given year significant changes are occurring in at least some states, policy makers, education experts, and researchers regularly noted how out of date SASS data were by the time the data were even just 3 years old. Given requests for more frequent information and agency resources, we were able to shift to the current 2-year periodicity.

Thank you again for your input during the public comment period.

Sincerely,

Andy Zukerberg

Cross Sectional Studies Branch Chief