Private School Statistics : A Review of Private and Federal Data Concerns. Special Report / David B. Orr.

In 1986, the Center for Education Statistics (CES) initiated a series of meetings with a wide range of private school representatives. At these meetings, a need for more complete information on the data collection efforts of the various private groups was identified, and as a result, CES agreed to investigate the extent and nature of the education statistics currently being collected. This paper describes the lines of inquiry, the findings, and some tentative implications for data collection in the private school sector. Each of 22 organizations including 15 member organizations of the Council for American Private Education--CAPE--and the National Catholic Educational Association, (estimated to cover 90-95 percent of private school activity) were asked to send CES copies of the forms they use to collect education statistics and examples of the reports prepared from them. A tentative set of data elements for a common system was developed, and each organization's coverage of the set was depicted in matrix form; both items were sent to all 22 organizations. A review of the materials supplied and the analysis of these and the matrix suggest that, except for the very broadest of generalizations, it would not be possible to derive a national picture from the aggregation of data as presently collected by the private school organizations. CES envisions a period during which CES and the various associations and private school representatives would negotiate the elements of a common "core" system and establish common definitions and procedures for data collection covering a limited data set. This effort would be coordinated with CES's public school data collections to permit further comparisons. (MLF)

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