History of the Handbooks

How Many Handbooks Are There?
Up until the 1970s, the handbooks were published as part of a series. In the early 1990s, the Student and Staff Handbooks underwent major revisions. In 2000 and 2001, both handbooks were updated, and development of the Education Systems Handbooks began. Those portions of the NCES Forum's Facilities Information Management and Safety in Numbers Handbooks containing data element listings have been added as sections to the Education Systems Handbooks in 2004 and a Food Services section has been incorporated into the Student Handbook as well. Today, all of the nonfiscal NCES handbooks are together in one online database referred to as NCES Handbooks Online. Also located on the same site is a link to the NCES Financial Accounting Handbook data elements (with their definitions and components).

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A Paperless Handbook
In updating the paper handbooks, it became increasingly apparent that there was significant overlap among the handbook topic areas, and that handbook users must utilize a combination of the handbooks in order to develop a comprehensive data system. Therefore, NCES created an online database to house the information in the handbooks and to allow for timely publishing of changes once they have been approved. The ultimate advantage to the data base approach is that users will have access to information from all of the handbooks in one location. The database contains handbook data elements (with their components) and selected defined terms.

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How NCES Handbooks Online was Developed
The sections for the Student and Staff Data Handbooks were updated from their early 2000 versions. The sections for the four Education Systems Handbooks (School, Local Education Agency, Intermediate Education Agency, and State Education Agency) were developed over a period of two years using a variety of methods described below. A working group of local, state, federal, and association education staff convened several times over this period to assist NCES in the development of this portion of the unified online handbooks, just as had been done previously for updating the sections of the Student and Staff Handbooks. The Facilities section and the Safety and Discipline section, which have each been incorporated into the School and Local Education Agency Handbooks, were adapted from the listings of data elements in their respective handbooks. In these two cases, some restructuring has been done for the purpose of conformance with database requirements. Also, a Food Services section has been added to the Student Handbook; this section was developed in a manner similar to that for the sections of the Education Systems Handbooks.

The selection of data terms included in the handbooks reflects the combined best judgment of those individuals representing local, state, and federal agencies as to which data are useful in making appropriate, cost-effective, and timely decisions about providing quality educational services in schools and other education agencies. Considerations in selecting which data elements to incorporate in these handbooks included the potential usefulness of the data, the effort necessary to collect them, and the need for required reporting. The identification of crucial bits of information needed for decision-making is a dynamic process. An attempt has been made to provide a comprehensive listing of all data elements that might be needed for decision-making essential for managing the education system, reporting to state and federal education officials, and computing indicators of school effectiveness. The handbooks are not meant to prescribe what data a particular school or agency should collect. No governmental agency requires the use of all of the terms, definitions, and procedures included here; however, care has been taken to make sure that the definitions are consistent with many governmental reporting requirements existing at the time of publication. Handbook users should be aware that due to compromises, as well as subsequent changes in Federal regulations, the definitions and terms used in this handbook may not correspond to terms and definitions required for reporting under all Federal programs. Agencies reporting data for Federal programs should follow the guidelines for those programs.

The definitions included for categories, data elements, options, and entities were taken primarily from existing sources; others were written with the assistance of participants in the development process of the handbooks. In some cases, laws or federal regulations specified what data elements should be used and how they should be defined. Some of the definitions were included in the previous Student and Staff Data Handbooks and are listed here because the terms are still in common usage. Others came from a variety of published sources, such as textbooks, federal publications, or other documents. For certain definitions, comparisons were made among various local, state and federal sources, and a compromise definition was developed. Most of the options were obtained from existing sources. Some of the lists were obtained through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Others were developed for the standard format for a student transcript (called SPEEDE/ExPRESS) or for the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF).

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Updates to the Handbooks
The NCES Handbooks are updated annually. In order to identify needed changes or additions, NCES will compile suggestions and questions sent by letter or e-mail over the course of a year. In addition, contacts with U.S. Department of Education staff will be made to determine if there are changes in reporting requirements affecting handbook data elements. On an annual basis, a group of local, state, federal, and association members will be invited to serve on a working group committee to consider the proposed changes and to decide what to include in the new revision. The National Education Statistics Agenda Committee of the National Forum on Education Statistics (the Forum) also provides feedback on changes and additions to the handbooks. Once the changes have been determined, they will be incorporated into the online handbooks database. Suggestions for revisions can be submitted to lee.hoffman@ed.gov.

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Safeguarding Confidentiality and Ensuring Appropriate Use of Individual Data
Individual data must be kept confidential. Education agencies must develop policies and procedures for collecting, maintaining, using, and disposing of individual data that are appropriate for local and state needs and conform with applicable laws and regulations. In determining what data should be incorporated into student or staff records, schools or education agencies should identify data needs at each and every level: for the classroom teacher, the school, the school district or other administrative unit, the state, and federal reporting requirements. Once these data elements are identified, schools and agencies must decide how to collect the data; how these data may be reviewed, verified, corrected, and updated; how access to student and staff data files may be controlled; and under what conditions student data should be transmitted to others.

The importance of safeguarding confidentiality cannot be overstated. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), first passed by the U.S. Congress in 1974, as well as state privacy requirements, requires that student data be closely guarded and released only according to specific guidelines. The National Forum on Education Statistics and NCES have released documents to assist education agencies with the confidential maintenance and appropriate use of individual data, called Forum Guide to Protecting the Privacy of Student Information and Privacy Issues in Education Staff Records. A related document that provides guidance on the use of the handbooks for designing information systems is Building an Automated Student Record System. In addition, NCES has produced a document on the security of technology systems that relates to the maintenance of administrative records systems, called Safeguarding Your Technology. These documents can be found on the Forum's website at: http://nces.ed.gov/forum/publications.asp.

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