Measuring Access to Learning Opportunities (2003)

Researchers with a license from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to use the restricted versions of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) and the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS:88) files can create new files using school-level information from the E&S survey for the appropriate years. Information from the Common Core of Data (CCD) is not restricted, so the school IDs are available to everyone. In this appendix, we discuss the potential benefits of merging E&S survey data with those from the CCD, ECLS-K, and NELS:88. Table D-1 lists the measures available from the E&S survey and indicates where comparable measures are available in the other datasets. At the very least, the table may provide a useful way to check the reliability of individual school-level measures. However, if there are discrepancies, we have no basis for determining which datafiles contain the more reliable data.

In addition to data about schools, both ECLS-K and NELS:88 collected data from individual teachers. With ECLS-K, sampled children’s kindergarten and first grade teachers were surveyed. With NELS:88, information was collected from two of each sampled student’s teachers in tenth grade, and from their math or science teachers in twelfth grade. Researchers might consider differences in how children’s days are structured in elementary and high school when considering how to construct their analyses. In early elementary school, children’s school experiences are limited largely to one teacher in one classroom, so the classroom as the unit of analysis makes good sense conceptually and statistically.¹ In

high schools, however, students’ experiences are spread over six or seven (or more) teachers each year, meaning that the appropriate unit of analysis is not the classroom but rather the school. In addition to cognitive assessments, NELS:88 also collected data from sampled students about their activities and attitudes with paper-and-pencil surveys. When appropriate, we note how students’ responses might inform school-level investigations. All childlevel reports of behaviors on ECLS-K are made by teachers or parents.

E&S survey data are available at both the district and the school levels, and Table D-1 shows the data that are available at the lowest level of aggregation, which is generally the school, but for some measures it is individual classrooms. Virtually all E&S data are broken down into multiple student categories (see the table footnotes). Throughout the table, the symbol * between two student characteristics indicates that the measure is broken down by more than one student characteristic (e.g., gender and race and ethnicity). For example, “Total Student Enrollment Gender*Grade” indicates that the E&S survey provides information about the number of boys and girls in each grade. Similarly, “Grade*Race” indicates how many black eighth graders or white third graders are enrolled in a particular school.

The ECLS-K measures listed in Table D-1 are from the first grade file, measured in 1999–2000. NELS:88 measures are from the second follow-up, which occurred during the 1991–1992 school year, when most students were in twelfth grade. It is important that researchers planning to create combined E&S/NELS:88 data files use E&S survey data from the appropriate year: for example, the 1992 E&S survey data for those using data from the second NELS:88 follow-up. Much of the aggregate information available on the E&S survey that is unavailable at the school level on ECLS-K or NELS:88 is available about individual sampled students, although researchers should be judicious in making school-level aggregates from student-level data. Although within-school student samples were randomly drawn, the numbers for which some aggregates are drawn is small, and they are all in a single grade. Furthermore, many similar (and even identical) school-level measures are also available for the ECLS-K base year (when sampled children were in kinder

garten) as well as the NELS:88 base year (eighth grade) and the first followup (tenth grade).

The first category in the table includes measures in which the four datasets have the most in common. Each dataset includes measures indicating total school enrollment and school enrollment by race. With the CCD data, by “calculable” we mean simply adding two or more variables will produce a measure identical to that on the E&S survey. Information about enrollment by gender and race in each grade is also available on ECLS-K for sampled classrooms. Because the CCD contains no more information in common with the E&S survey, we do not mention it further in this section.

E&S contains information about the number of student disciplinary actions broken down by various student characteristics. Surprisingly, neither ECLS-K nor NELS:88 provides such information, although this information is available on NELS:88 on sampled students. ECLS-K includes the number of students in gifted and talented programs at both the school and sampled classroom levels. ECLS-K and NELS:88 also provide information about the number of students in classes for English-language learners in each school, while ECLS-K has information about the number of English-language learners in kindergarten and first grade. NELS:88 includes a measure indicating the number of children in each school receiving bilingual and English-language learner services. On ECLS-K, information about the number of children actually receiving such services is available only in sampled classrooms.

The E&S survey distinguishes between two types of special education students: 504 and IDEA. The following definitions are included with E&S documentation:

Because of the important federal role in special education, the E&S survey contains a great deal of information about special education access. NELS:88 provides simple information on the number of special education students enrolled in each school. ECLS-K includes only dichotomous measures indicating whether the school serves children with individual education plans (IEPs), children eligible under Section 504, and children with IEPs who are served under IDEA. However, in sampled classrooms, ECLS-K includes the number of children with IEPs and the number served under both IDEA and Section 504. The E&S survey also breaks down special education students into their specific disability; ECLS-K includes the same information, but only for sampled classrooms and does not distinguish degrees of mental retardation, as does the E&S survey.

Another area in which the E&S survey appears to be the sole source of school-level information is special education mainstreaming. E&S contains information about the number of students in each disability category that spend less than 21 percent, between 21 and 60 percent, and more than 60 percent of their time in regular classrooms. ECLS-K contains a very broad measure indicating whether special education students spend most of their day in or out of the regular classroom, as well as more detailed information on sampled students receiving special education services.

The E&S survey includes information about the number of students who passed or failed districtor state-mandated tests, as well as the number who were given alternative assessments or were simply not tested (again, broken down by student characteristics). ECLS-K includes only a measure indicating the proportion of students who performed at or above national norms on standardized tests of math and reading. NELS:88 indicates whether or not twelfth graders must pass a test to receive their high school diploma, whether students are required to pass minimum competency tests, and the percentage of students who fail these

tests on the first attempt. Of course, testing was less of an issue a decade ago than it is today.

Another set of E&S survey data details the number of students in each grade and class who are grouped by ability. Although quite interesting, there is no information regarding which children are in which groups (low, medium, or high), meaning that it is impossible to investigate whether within-school segregation by race, ethnicity, or gender is occurring. Information on these measures is included only for schools that have a 20–80 percent minority enrollment, suggesting that this area was a potential point of the survey item. However, the E&S survey measures do not provide a means to investigate such questions. One could certainly investigate whether schools that enroll different types of students tend to group their students by ability, but segregation by ability grouping is obviously a within-school phenomenon. Once ability groups are created, some segregation is likely to follow because test scores are stratified by race and social class throughout the K–12 system. Sampled ECLS-K classrooms contain data on whether a teacher sorts students by ability for math or reading, but, again, there is no information about which children are in which groups.

The E&S survey includes the number of full-time equivalent (FTEs) teachers and the number of teachers who are fully certified in their subject area. Both ECLS-K and NELS:88 include the number of FTEs. In terms of teacher certification, ECLS-K and NELS:88 include such data on sampled teachers, which makes sense since teachers can be linked to students (and their achievement scores).

The E&S survey also collects information about student participation in advanced placement (AP) courses. The data include the number of students taking AP math and AP science courses. NELS:88 includes measures indicating the number of twelfth graders taking AP courses and the percent of the overall student body taking AP courses, and NELS:88 transcripts actually record student enrollment in AP courses. However, the NELS:88 data are likely to be outdated, as the AP program has mushroomed in the last decade. On the NELS:88 first follow-up (tenth grade), a measure is included indicating the number of students with limited English proficiency enrolled in AP classes.

Because of interest in Title IX compliance, the E&S survey includes information on the number of male and female sports each high school offers and the number of males and females participating. NELS:88 has no comparable measures other than data collected among sampled students regarding their participation in interscholastic activities.

In some areas, such as the number and characteristics of students and teachers and the raw number of English-language learners and special education students in each school, data on the E&S survey are available on other federal datasets. In several other areas, however, such as student discipline and special education mainstreaming, E&S appears to be an important source of national data and is certainly the only dataset containing such information on the entire population of U.S. public schools, and over time, for the same schools. For researchers interested in national trends in the programs surveyed by the E&S survey, the data are an invaluable resource, especially because individual schools have been surveyed for almost 35 years. The potential to investigate change in these schools’ compliance is enormous. However, for researchers interested in school effects studies involving student-level social and academic outcomes, the E&S data are less valuable.