Collecting and Reporting Ethnic Data

Two week0s ago, the United States Department of Education (ED) released final guidance on maintaining, collecting and reporting ethnic data to ED. 72 Fed. Reg. 59266, (Oct. 19, 2007). The final guidance details how educational institutions and other recipients of grants and contracts from ED will:


• Collect and maintain racial ands ethnic data from students and staff;
• Aggregate racial and ethnic data when reporting those data to ED; and
• Report and aggregate those data under No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

In brief, ED will require the use of a two-part question. The first question will be whether or not the respondent is Hispanic/Latino. The second question will ask the respondent to select from five racial groups. If, in the case of an elementary or secondary school, the individual or parents do not self-identify their race or ethnicity, the regulations allow the institutional agent to use observer identification.
Once collected, the reporting to ED will be in seven categories:
1. Hispanic/Latino of any race; and, for individuals who are non-Hispanic/Latino only;
2. American Indian or Alaska Native;
3. Asian;
4. Black or African American;
5. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander;
6. White; and
7. Two or more races.

The final guidance will affect reporting under NCLB. It stipulates that state educational agencies (SEA) will continue to have discretion in determining which racial and ethnic groups will be used for accountability purposes, yet that discretion comes with conditions. If an SEA makes changes to the racial and ethnic data categories, swapping native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander for Asian/Pacific Islander for example, then it must submit an amendment to its Accountability Workbook. If it does not change its major racial and ethnic groups, it may be necessary to “bridge” the previous data collection groups to the new reporting groups in order to maintain reliable data over time and to facilitate uniform data gathering and maintenance practices. Bridging involves adopting a method for being able to link the new data collected using the two-part question with data collected before the publication of this guidance. For example, an SEA may ‘‘bridge’’ the ‘‘two or more races’’ category into single race categories or the new single race categories into the previous single race categories.

However an SEA chooses to reconcile its collection and reporting practices, the new final rules reminds the SEA that ED, always steward of the federal dollars, will closely scrutinize any changes. “During the Department’s routine monitoring of Title I programs, we expect to ask States … the extent to which they may relate to any changes in the demographic measurements that may have been brought about by the changes in the final guidance.” 72 Fed. Reg. 59266, (Oct. 19, 2007) at 59272. The guidance’s implementation date will begin with reporting data from the 2010–2011 school year.

Resource:
Racial and ethnic data standards; collection and reporting requirements, 72 Fed. Reg. 59266, (Oct. 19, 2007), http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a071019c.html.
Author: DAD