PWS - Task Order 20.pdf

Version Date: March 1, 2022

Performance Work Statement Period of Performance: June 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023 Bridge Contract: Task 20-CRDC: Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) Data Products and Analysis Support

I. Background

The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is a mandatory data collection that provides vital data on education equity for the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED or the Department) Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The CRDC is authorized under the statutes and regulations implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and under the Department of Education Organization Act (20 U.S.C.

3413). The regulations implementing these provisions can be found at 34 CFR 100.6(b); 34 CFR 106.71; and 34 CFR 104.61.

The CRDC is a longstanding and critical aspect of the overall enforcement and monitoring strategy by OCR to ensure that recipients of the Department’s federal financial assistance do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, and disability. OCR relies on the CRDC data received from public school districts as it investigates complaints alleging discrimination, determines whether the federal civil rights laws it enforces have been violated, initiates proactive compliance reviews to focus on particularly acute or nationwide civil rights compliance problems, and provides policy guidance and technical assistance to educational institutions, parents, students, and others.

The data are also used by the Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and other offices, as well as policy makers and researchers outside of ED. The CRDC provides a measure of the equity health of schools across the nation by collecting wide-ranging data on educational access and opportunity. The CRDC collects data on early childhood education, college and career readiness, characteristics and demographics of schools, discipline, and resource equity.

The CRDC is administered every two years to public school districts or Local Education Agency (District or LEA). The survey began in 1968, traditionally as a sample survey of approximately 6,000 school districts covering each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Beginning with the 2011-12 collection, the CRDC administrations have been a universe collection from every public school district and school. The CRDC includes traditional public schools, alternative schools, state-operated facilities, and juvenile justice facilities.

To meet the purpose and intended uses of the data, the CRDC collects information about students in public schools, including enrollment, educational programs and services, disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency and disability. Additionally, the location of where the students receive instruction is reported so that the data OCR collects reflects an accurate picture of students’ access to educational opportunities at the site where they spend the majority of their school day.

Each LEA submits a short survey about the LEA as well as a longer survey about each school in the LEA. Since 2004, the CRDC has been conducted primarily online. The web-based survey is filled out by representatives of LEAs who use state, LEA, and school information systems and other resources to respond to questions. The LEA is the respondent and the responsible entity for certifying to the accuracy of the data submission. Beginning with the 2013-14 CRDC administration, a group of State Education Agencies (SEAs) pre-populated LEA survey forms with data already collected by the SEA for state reporting purposes. LEAs in these states are able to review and amend as needed the SEA prepopulated data before certifying their CRDC. The two recent CRDC include data from the 2015-16 and the 2017-18 school years.

II. Purpose

The primary purpose of this task is to support NCES with research and data analysis projects to support the ongoing operations of the CRDC. Tasks performed under this bridge contract will follow on activities started during ESSIN Task 20 that supported pre-collection and active collection for the 2020-21 CRDC. This task will support post-collection data activities related to the 2020-21 CRDC and also pre-collection and active collection for the 2021-22 CRDC. The incumbent will perform work to improve data quality and to increase the usability of CRDC data products. The specific tasks include providing support in the following areas: 1) completion of specific data requests, 2) execution of data analysis and research projects to evaluate the quality of data submitted by local education agencies to the CRDC, 3) development of state and national estimates for key figures from submitted data, and 4), should it be exercised by the government, support for activities needed to transition these tasks to a new vendor in 2023.

III. Performance Tasks

Task 1 (Formerly Task 8 within ESSIN Task 20): Civil Rights Data Collection Data Requests

Under this task, the contractor will provide support to the NCES task leader to produce data products from the CRDC in response to data requests. The contractor will provide support to ad hoc data requests that NCES and OCR receive throughout the year from Congress, other ED programs and offices, researchers, reporters, or other public users. The contractor should assume 10 ad hoc data products.

The contractor will also provide support to produce analyses for yearly data reports and briefs published by OCR. The contractor should assume at least 150 instances of tabulated data that could utilize not only the most recent CRDC data, but also the 2017-18, 2015-16, 2013-14 and 2011-12 collections. Tables will meet NCES standards (http://nces.ed.gov/statprog/2002/stdtoc.asp).

Deliverables

1.1 Research reports and data products concerning CRDC within 14 business days of receipt from the Task Leader

Task 2 (Formerly Task 9 within ESSIN Task 20): CRDC Research Project Requests The contractor should expect to carry out specific assignments given by the NCES task leader to improve the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) quality, production efficiency, statistical methodology, or data coverage. Examples of this work could include reviewing specific topical modules from the most recent CRDC collection to identify data quality issues. The contractor should assume at least 3 CRDC research project requests. One project is the continuation of the work to map unique identifiers between the CRDC, the EDFacts dataset, other administrative datasets to create a crosswalk for data users. The crosswalk will utilize data from the most recent CRDC collections.

2.1 At least 3 products concerning CRDC meeting the need of the research project requests within 14 business days of receipt from the Task Leader.

Task 3 (Formerly Optional Task 10 within ESSIN Task 20): Create CRDC National and State Estimates

The work under this task is to create the national and state estimates for recent CRDC data. The contractor will use the raw, unrounded, restricted-use CRDC data file. Missing data is an issue key to computing these estimates because several large districts did not certify the data and some districts requested exemptions from reporting certain data elements. The scope of work under this task includes the creation of a usable data file with appropriate imputations and privacy protections applied and the creation of data tables that enable review of the resulting output within the data files.

Following are more details of this work:

1. Evaluate imputation strategies and make recommendations for additional imputation methods (if any) to the most recent CRDC restricted-use data file

Deliverable 3.1: A memo detailing the outcome of the evaluation, and the rationale for any proposed imputation strategies including alternative approaches.

2. Apply student privacy protections to the imputed file. The perturbation routine will be applied to all variables in the imputed school-level dataset at the lowest level of disaggregation collected. The parameters of the perturbation will be described in a “Safe to Release” memo provided by the ED Disclosure Review Board. ED will provide the approved parameters for performing this work.

Deliverable 3.2: A restricted-use, perturbed data file of the most recent CRDC data, including imputations. Data file documentation, including an implementation summary documenting the application of aggregation routines, privacy protection routines and data accuracy checks on the imputed, privacy protected data files.

3. Calculate national and state estimates. The perturbed data files will be used to calculate estimates for the nation and 50 states plus DC and create publishable data tables. It will be necessary to bottom-code the data tables as a part of the privacy protection methods that will be specified by ED in the “Safe to Release” memo. ED will provide a list of the specific data elements to be included.

Deliverable 3.3: Perturbed data file with national and state estimates.

4. Create publishable tables. The contract team will develop data tables for the estimates created in #3 and meet with ED staff to finalize data tables. Quality control reviews will need to be conducted along with formatting each table to meet NCES publication standards. The contract team will need to include accompanying data notes for the data tables when necessary to document procedures. The data displays will also be 508 compliant.

The Contractors will also conduct preliminary analyses of the data (descriptive statistics only) to identify “big picture” state and national findings on school climate and disciplinary practices. AIR team will disaggregate the data in the tables by race/ethnicity, gender, and in some pre-specified instances, disability status for each state and the nation.

Deliverable 3.4: Data tables, technical report of methodology and findings.

Task 4 (Optional): Transition Activities The Government may decide to implement a transition period if funding and needs permit. The transition period, if implemented, would not affect the contract period of performance specified above. If a transition period is necessary, the Period of Performance will be 2 weeks with dates to be agreed upon by the government and the contractor. During this transition period, the NCES task leader and the contractor shall identify tasks and agree on the scope of work. Transition hours shall also be budgeted to efficiently transfer necessary files and information to the Government.

IV. Period of Performance

The period of performance for this task order is from June 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.

V. Schedule of Deliverables This schedule assumes a period of performance for this task order of June 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.

During the kick-off meeting, the contractor, task leader, COR and other ED-NCES project managers will establish the project timeline with keys dates for deliverables.

Task 1: CRDC Research Projects

1.1 Research reports

and data products

Deliverable: Research reports and data products concerning CRDC as assigned

Estimated Due Date:

Within 14 business days of receipt from the Task Leader

Task 2: CRDC Research Project Requests

2.1 – 3 CRDC

research project requests

Deliverable: Contractor should expect to carry out specific assignments given by the NCES task leader to improve the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) quality, production efficiency, statistical methodology, or data coverage

Estimated Due Date:

Research project requests within 14 business days of receipt from the Task Leader

Task 3 (Optional): Create CRDC National and State Estimates

3.1 – Memo A memo detailing the outcome of the evaluation, and the rationale for any proposed imputation strategies including alternative approaches.

Within 21 business days

Leader

3.2 – Data Files A restricted-use, perturbed data file of the most recent CRDC data, including imputations

3.3 – Data Files and other products

Perturbed data file with national and state estimates.

3.4 – Data tables, technical report of methodology and findings

The Contractors will also conduct preliminary analyses of the data (descriptive statistics only) to identify “big picture” state and national findings on school climate and disciplinary practices

Within 21 business days of receipt from the Task Leader

Task 4: Transitional Activities

4.1 – Optional Deliverable: NCES and the contractor shall identify tasks and agree on the scope of work.

Estimated Due Date:

within 14 business days

Leader