October 2019

AERA is planning to provide comment on proposed changes by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), which were published in a Federal Register notice on September 19.

AERA urges members with an interest in these data to review the proposed changes and consider providing their own comments by the November 18 deadline. Comments can be submitted here on the regulations.gov website.

AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine emphasized that “we would also value AERA members sharing their expertise on this topic with the association by sending an email to govrelations@aera.net.”

As reported in AERA Highlights last month, OCR is proposing the elimination of several indicators from the survey, including:

• Some early childhood education data from LEAs, including whether preschool is provided to all students, students with disabilities, students in Title I programs, and students from low-income families
• Disaggregation for the number of students age 3–5 enrolled in preschool by race, sex, English Learner status, and disability classification under the Individuals with Disabilities Act
• School finance data on expenditures
• The number of first-year and second-year teachers
• The number of teachers who are absent more than 10 school days per school year

In addition, OCR is proposing the expansion of data collection on reports of sexual violence, reports of bullying and harassment based on religious beliefs and sex/gender stereotypes, and the enrollment of students with disabilities in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses.