A Vision and Roadmap for Education Statistics (2022) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
5 Transform Internal Structure and Operations to Align with and Directly Support the Strategic Plan
5 Transform Internal Structure and Operations to Align with and Directly Support the Strategic Plan
Pages 105-122
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 105... ...
were moved to NCES from the Office 1 IES document provided to the panel, "Reorganization within the Institute of Education Sciences." 105
|
From page 106... ...
39. 3 The statistics units count includes the Administrative Data Division, Sample Surveys Division and its predecessors, Statistical Standards and Data Confidentiality Staff, Annual Reports and Information Staff, and the Office of the Commissioner.
|
From page 107... ...
to the U.S. Census Bureau for the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates program.4 Currently, there is no reimbursable arrange 4 NCES response to question from the panel, p.
|
From page 108... ...
make up the majority of NCES staff.7 Managing contracts is an increasingly large part of staff workload. Daily, NCES staff must develop, plan, oversee, direct, review, and assess work performed by contractors.8 Consequently, NCES tends to hire and retain employees with the technical expertise and specialized work experience to effectively perform contracted tasks and, as a result, NCES currently has a lesser capacity than most large statistical agencies to hire, train, and develop junior, inexperienced staff.
|
From page 109... ...
. For example, staff who work primarily on international studies are organized in assessment units, while the program dollars for the international studies collections have always come from the statistics budget appropriation.
|
From page 110... ...
Shifting an agency's vacated positions back into a larger, often competitive, centralized pool is not an uncommon practice in the federal government. The Senate's FY 2022 appropriations report creates a separate appropriation for IES that is distinct from ED's program administration account, which has funded IES since its inception, and leaves the door open for increasing NCES staffing in the future: ESRA required IES, in carrying out its mission, to compile statistics, de velop products, and conduct research, evaluations, and wide dissemination activities in areas of demonstrated national need and ensure that such activities conform to high standards of quality, integrity, and accuracy and are objective, secular, neutral, and nonideological and are free of partisan political influence.
|
From page 111... ...
Data analyses and writing, including NCES's blog and conference presentations, are generated by a mix of staff and contractors.15 The 2019 report for the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act 13 Also noted in Appendix D, Table D-1, this is the average number of dollars calculated as direct funding in FY 2020 divided by the number of FTE permanent staff -- sometimes called the budget-to-staff ratio. It is used to express the average number of dollars managed by each agency staff member.
|
From page 112... ...
This is the average number of dollars calculated as direct funding in FY 2020 divided by number of FTE permanent staff, sometimes called the budget-to-staff ratio. It is used to express the average number of dollars managed by each agency staff member (see also Appendix D, Table D-1)
|
From page 113... ...
currently exists for growing and replenishing the Center's users and 16 The non-NAEP data collections include: Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Fast Response Survey System, High School and Beyond Longitudinal Survey, High School Longitudinal Study, Middle Grades Longitudinal Study, National Household Education Survey, National Teacher and Principal Survey, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, Program for International Student Assessment, School Survey on Crime and Safety, and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. 17 NCES document provided to the panel, "2019 Report to OMB on the NCES Implementa tion of the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA)
|
From page 114... ...
For example, The College Scorecard is currently produced by the OPEPD, under the department's chief data officer. However, NCES led the collaboration to merge student-level data held by ED's student aid office with annual Internal Revenue Service income tax data (managed by the Social Security Administration)
|
From page 115... ...
CONCLUSION 5-1: NCES's current organizational structure, with statistical programs separated by data source type (sample surveys and administrative data) , contributes to silos that limit innovation.
|
From page 116... ...
CONCLUSION 5-2: NCES's current overreliance on contractors and its high turnover rate endanger the Center's ability to retain institutional knowledge and build internal capabilities needed to meet its strategic goals. 23 See: https://ies.ed.gov/director/remarks/5-12-2020.asp [March 2022]
|
From page 117... ...
In contrast to NCES's current organizational structure, with three primary divisions that are grouped by data source (i.e., assessments, surveys, administrative data; see NCES, 2021b) , BTS is organized by topic and function.
|
From page 118... ...
Another creative way to build staff capabilities and capacity is by estab lishing senior level and senior technical positions, which are not subject to Senior Executive Service caps.28 The U.S. Census Bureau and Energy Information Administration were among the first statistical agencies to make use of Senior Level and Senior Technical positions; this strategy has since been introduced to other agencies, such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
|
From page 119... ...
Other federal statistical agencies have found user groups to be an invaluable resource for building internal capacity without necessarily adding headcount. Each of these mechanisms can work as force multipliers, replenishing and renewing an agency's workforce.
|
From page 120... ...
discusses phases of bringing interactive visualization expertise in-house and offers an example of the actions NCES could consider when a skills gap exists. Supporting this perspective, a recent retail trade study used firm-level data available at the U.S.
|
From page 121... ...
TRANSFORM INTERNAL STRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS 121 examine the evolution of business operations (Ding et al., 2020)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.