Apr 24 -- The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Department of Education (ED), invites comment to OMB by May 24, 2023 regarding the National Teacher and Principal Survey of 2023-2024 (NTPS 2023-24) Data Collection.
The National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), conducted every two or three years 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 and private 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 also functions as the base-year for the longitudinal studies Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) and Principal Follow-up Survey (PFS).
A previous request (OMB #1850–0598 v.41) to conduct the NTPS 2023–24 preliminary activities, namely special district recruitment, recruitment of endorsers, and Screener Survey for the NTPS and the NTPS follow-up surveys, was approved in December 2022. This request for public comment and OMB review is for the NTPS 2023–24 Main Study final procedures and materials, including all contact materials and survey questionnaires. Public comment and OMB approval for the follow-up surveys to NTPS 2023–24—the Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) and the Principal Follow-up Survey (PFS)—will be requested in an additional package in winter 2023–24.
SASS, the predecessor to NTPS, was conducted by NCES seven times between 1987 and 2011. SASS was an integrated study of public school districts, public and private schools, principals, teachers, and library media centers, designed to provide descriptive data on a wide range of topics including teacher demand, teacher and principal characteristics, general conditions in schools, principals' and teachers' perceptions of school climate and problems in their schools, teacher compensation, and district hiring and retention practices. After 2011-12, NCES redesigned SASS and named it the NTPS to reflect the redesigned study’s focus on the teacher and principal labor market and on the state of K-12 school staff. NCES first conducted NTPS during the 2015-16 school year, and then again during the 2017-18 and 2020-21 school years. The next collection will take place during the 2023-24 school year.
The sample for NTPS 2023-24 will include approximately 9,920 public schools and principals and approximately 49,250 public school teachers, as well as approximately 3,000 private schools and principals and approximately 6,300 private school teachers. The respondent universe for public and private schools will continue to consist of all schools in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (DC) that offer instruction in any of grades 1-12.
Data collection will begin with the sampled schools. A precontact notification, a two-sided, full-color postcard intended to introduce the NTPS survey to the school and verify the school’s mailing address, will be sent to sampled schools in the summer of 2023. About a month later, the principal will be contacted by mail and asked to complete a short Screener Survey online, which will confirm the school’s eligibility for the NTPS and will establish a survey coordinator at the school to whom contacts will be made throughout data collection. Both the precontact notification and Screener operation were included in the OMB package for preliminary field activities (OMB# 1850-0598 v.41).
Teachers will be randomly sampled from rosters obtained either through a Teacher Listing Form (TLF) submitted to the Census Bureau by sampled schools, purchased from a vendor and verified by sampled schools, directly from the vendor information, or from information collected from school websites (see the Teacher Listing Form (NTPS-1) subsection in this section). Teachers are ineligible for NTPS if they are short-term substitutes, student teachers, teacher’s aides, or do not teach any of grades K-12 or comparable ungraded levels.
NTPS collects information from schools, principals, and teachers in four data collection instruments: the TLF, the School Questionnaire, the Principal Questionnaire, and the Teacher Questionnaire. The School, Principal, and Teacher Questionnaire instruments have separate question paths for public and private schools. The final versions of the NTPS 2023-24 questionnaires are provided in Appendix B.
NTPS:
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/
NCES submission to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202301-1850-002 Click IC List for information collection instrument, View Supporting Statement for technical documentation. Submit comments through this webpage.
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-08550
For AEA members wishing to submit comments, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806