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A Vision and Roadmap for Education Statistics (2022) / Chapter Skim
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6 Summary of Recommendations
Pages 123-130

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From page 123...
... However, critical factors restrain NCES from filling this intended role. For example, NCES has experienced a severe decline in full-time equivalent employees, operates under multiple constraints and unfunded mandates, is not entirely in control of its future, and lacks a unified strategic plan to guide it through difficult priority decisions.
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From page 124...
... Within 1 year of the developed strategic plan: NCES will have action plans that allow the agency to:  Increase diversity and awareness of equity issues Within 6 months of a developed (Recommendation 2-4) strategic plan:  Expand data acquisition strategies to gain new insights  NCES will have an implementation plan (Recommendations 2-5 and 2-6)
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From page 125...
... Theme: Maximize NCES's Unique Value for Evidence Building RECOMMENDATION 2-3: The secretary of education, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, and NCES commissioner should immediately take actions to enable the NCES commissioner to most ef fectively fulfill the responsibilities of the statistical official delineated in the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 and to support evidence-building needs across the Department of Education. Given the position of the NCES commissioner as the Department of Education's (ED's)
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From page 126...
... Theme: Expand Data-Acquisition Strategies to Gain New Insights RECOMMENDATION 2-5: To improve its efficiency, timeliness, and relevance, NCES should continually explore alternative data sources for potential use in data and statistical products, conduct studies on the quality of these sources and their fitness for use, and expand respon sible access to data from multiple sources and linkage tools. Testing and adoption of new data-science methods for harnessing alternative data should be done in collaboration with other federal statistical agen cies, as well as with other components of the Institute of Education Sciences that are actively exploring ways to strengthen the impact of these techniques.
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From page 127...
... Theme: Expand Engagement and Dissemination for Greater Mission Impact Create engagement feedback loops to ensure relevance of products and services RECOMMENDATION 4-1: NCES should deepen and broaden its engagement with current and potential data users, to gather continu ing feedback about their needs and ways that NCES can meet those needs more effectively. This feedback will help NCES shape its efforts to develop and disseminate standards, provide technical assistance, and strengthen its user community.
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From page 128...
... By helping to set standards for collecting, processing, and analyzing data, NCES can advance the quality and comparability of data collected by nonNCES researchers, creating a larger body of education data and analyses. RECOMMENDATION 4-4: NCES should strengthen state capacity to link data across systems, adopt shared data standards, and provide actionable information to state and local education agencies to help improve student learning outcomes.
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From page 129...
... NCES can learn from other federal statistical agencies who have shortened their review processes, staggered their data releases, or issued revised estimates. Theme: Transform the Internal Structure and Operations to Align with and Directly Support the Strategic Plan while Incentivizing Innovation, Experimentation, and Continuous Learning CONCLUSION 5-1: NCES's current organizational structure, with statistical programs separated by data source type (sample surveys and administrative data)
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From page 130...
... Contractors bring valuable skills and knowledge, and NCES should make full use of contractors to strengthen its own internal operations, rather than becoming dependent on them. Employing various types of contracts may provide NCES more flexibility in how contractors are used.
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Key Terms

  • statistical agencies
  • education sciences
  • evidence building
  • education data
  • help nces

  • statistical official
  • federal statistical
  • survey research
  • external researchers
  • engage stakeholders

  • data science
  • ensure relevance
  • feedback loops
  • role enabling
  • engagement feedback

  • data access
  • organizational transformation
  • developed strategic
  • understanding contemporary
  • enabling data

  • contemporary education
  • data ecosystem
  • outside contractors
  • consulting body
  • education statistical

  • acquisition strategies
  • own internal
  • create engagement
  • includes matching
  • contract types


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