[Federal Register: August 7, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 151)]
[Notices]
[Page 44865-44871]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr07au06-150]
[[Page 44865]]
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Part V
Department of Education
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Proposed Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting and Reporting Data on Race
and Ethnicity to the U.S. Department of Education; Notice
[[Page 44866]]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Proposed Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting and Reporting Data
on Race and Ethnicity to the U.S. Department of Education
AGENCY: Department of Education.
ACTION: Request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The Secretary is proposing guidance to modify the standards
for data on race and ethnicity used by the Department of Education.
Once adopted, this guidance will provide educational institutions and
other recipients of grants and contracts from the Department with
straightforward instructions for their collection and reporting of data
on race and ethnicity.
We request from all interested parties written comments on the
proposed guidance.
DATES: We must receive your comments on or before September 21, 2006.
ADDRESSES: Address all comments regarding this proposed guidance to
Patrick J. Sherrill, US Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue,
SW., Room 6C103, Washington, DC 20202-0600. If you prefer to send your
comments through the Internet, you may address them to us at the U.S.
Government Web site: http://www.regulations.gov.
Or you may send your Internet comments to us at the following
address: comments@ed.gov.
You must include the phrase ``Guidance for Data on Race and
Ethnicity'' in the text of your paper document or the subject line of
your electronic message to ensure that your comments will be
considered.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information: Patrick J.
Sherrill, US Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., Room
6C103, Washington, DC 20202-0600, telephone: (202) 708-8196 or Edith K.
McArthur, US Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics, 1990 K Street, NW., Room 9115, Washington, DC 20006,
telephone: (202) 502-7393.
If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD), you may
call the Federal Relay Service (FRS) at 1-800-877-8339.
Individuals with disabilities may obtain this document in an
alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, or computer
diskette) on request to one of the contact persons listed under FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Invitation To Comment
We invite you to submit comments regarding this proposed guidance.
During and after the comment period, you may inspect all public
comments about this proposed guidance in Room 6C103, 400 Maryland
Avenue, SW., Washington, DC, between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.,
Eastern Time, Monday through Friday of each week except Federal
holidays.
Assistance to Individuals With Disabilities in Reviewing the Public
Record
On request, we will supply an appropriate aid to an individual with
a disability who needs assistance to review the comments or other
documents in the public record for the proposed guidance. If you want
to schedule an appointment for this type of aid, please contact one of
the persons listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
Proposed Guidance
I. Purpose
This proposed guidance is provided to the public to solicit
comments on how the US Department of Education (the Department) is
proposing to modify standards and aggregation categories for collecting
information on race and ethnicity. The proposed changes are necessary
in order to implement the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) 1997
Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on
Race and Ethnicity (1997 Standards).\1\ The 1997 Standards instituted a
number of changes for how Federal agencies should collect data on race
and ethnicity.
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\1\ See OMB, Revisions to the Standards for the Classification
of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, 62 FR 58781 (October 30,
1997); http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/1997standards.html.
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This proposed guidance is designed to be straightforward and easy
to implement. Whenever possible, we have proposed a Department-wide
standard. However, in certain situations, we have tailored the standard
to the different needs of the institutions collecting data.\2\ The
Department recognizes that implementing the changes required by OMB to
improve the quality of data on race and ethnicity may result in an
additional burden to educational institutions. In developing this
proposed guidance, we have sought to minimize the burden of
implementation on local and State educational agencies (LEAs and SEAs),
schools, colleges, universities, (hereinafter collectively referred to
as ``educational institutions''), and other recipients of grants and
contracts from the Department (hereinafter referred to as ``other
recipients''), while developing guidance that would result in the
collection of comprehensive and accurate data on race and ethnicity
that the Department needs to fulfill its responsibilities. We have done
so by using the same reporting categories used by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), so that local educational agencies can
use the same reporting requirements for students and staff.
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\2\ For example, for the purposes of No Child Left Behind,
States are allowed to define major racial and ethnic groups using
categories that may be different than the seven categories announced
in this guidance. These differences may reflect the State using more
categories than the seven, less categories than the seven, or a
decision to use subsets of the seven categories announced in this
guidance. Additionally, in the Integrated Postsecondary Education
Data Systems (IPEDS) and Rehabilitation Services Administration
(RSA) data collections, grantees are permitted to use a race unknown
category, while in elementary and secondary programs use of a race
unknown category is not permitted.
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This proposed guidance applies to the collection of individual-
level data and to aggregate data on race and ethnicity reported to the
Department. Aggregate data mean the total data on race and ethnicity
that are reported to the Department by educational institutions and
other recipients. The data are collected by them and reported in the
aggregate to the Department. This proposed guidance directly addresses
three sets of issues:
(A) How educational institutions and other recipients will collect
and maintain data on race and ethnicity from students and staff;
(B) How educational institutions and other recipients will
aggregate data on race and ethnicity when reporting those data to the
Department; and
(C) How data on multiple races will be reported and aggregated
under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as
reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).
In addition, this proposed guidance provides information regarding
the implementation schedule for these changes.
II. Background
In October 1997, OMB issued revised standards for the collection
and reporting of data on race and ethnicity. A transition period was
provided in order for agencies to review the results of Census 2000,
the first national data collection that implemented the revised
standards. (See the discussion in Part
[[Page 44867]]
IV.) The Department plans to begin the process of implementing all
necessary changes by the school year beginning in the Fall of 2006,
with the implementation required to be completed by the Fall of
2009.\3\
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\3\ Although not required to do so, educational institutions and
other recipients already collecting individual-level data in the
manner specified by this notice are encouraged to immediately begin
reporting aggregate data to the Department in accordance with this
notice.
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The 1997 Standards include several important changes:
A. OMB revised the minimum set of racial categories by separating
the category ``Asian or Pacific Islander'' into two separate
categories--one for ``Asian'' and one for ``Native Hawaiian or Other
Pacific Islander.'' Therefore, under the 1997 Standards, there are five
racial categories:
(1) American Indian or Alaska Native,
(2) Asian,
(3) Black or African American,
(4) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and
(5) White.
B. For the first time, individuals have the opportunity to identify
themselves as being of or belonging to more than one race. In the 2000
Census, 2.4 percent of the total population (or 6.8 million people)
identified themselves as belonging to two or more racial groups. For
the population under 18 years old, 4.0 percent (or 2.8 million
children) selected two or more races.\4\
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\4\ See United States Census Bureau, The Two or More Races
Population: 2000, Census 2000 Brief, at p. 9 (November 2001)
(hereinafter ``The Two or More Races Population''); this information
is on the Internet at the following address: http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-6.pdf
.
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C. In an effort to allow individuals--rather than a third party--to
report their race and ethnicity, the 1997 Standards strongly encourage
``self-identification'' of race and ethnicity rather than third party
``observer identification.''
D. Under the 1997 Standards, OMB strongly encouraged the use of a
two-question format when collecting data on race and ethnicity; i.e.,
individuals should first indicate whether or not they are of Hispanic/
Latino ethnicity; then, individuals may select one or more races from
the five racial categories.
III. Summary of Guidance
The Department proposes to modify its standards for the collection
and reporting of data on race and ethnicity in the following manner:
A. Educational institutions and other recipients will be required
to collect data on race and ethnicity using a two-question format on
the educational institution's or other recipient's survey instrument.
The first question would be whether or not the respondent is Hispanic/
Latino. Hispanic or Latino means a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto
Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin,
regardless of race. The term, ``Spanish origin,'' can be used in
addition to ``Hispanic or Latino.''
The second question would ask the respondent to select one or more
races from the following five racial groups:
(1) American Indian or Alaska Native. A person having origins in
any of the original peoples of North and South America (including
Central America), and who maintains a tribal affiliation or community
attachment.
(2) Asian. A person having origins in any of the original peoples
of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including,
for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan,
the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
(3) Black or African American. A person having origins in any of
the black racial groups of Africa.
(4) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. A person having
origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other
Pacific Islands.
(5) White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples
of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. See 1997 Standards, 62 FR
58789 (October 30, 1997).
(See the discussion in Part IV.A.1 and 2 of this notice.)
B. Educational institutions and other recipients should allow
students, parents, and staff to ``self-identify'' race and ethnicity
unless self-identification is not practicable or feasible. (See the
discussion in Part IV.A.3 of this notice.)
C. The Department encourages educational institutions and other
recipients to allow all students and staff the opportunity to re-
identify their race and ethnicity under the 1997 Standards. (See the
discussion in Part IV.A.4 of this notice.)
D. The Department proposes to have educational institutions and
other recipients report aggregated data on race and ethnicity in 7
categories:
(1) Hispanics of any race; and, for Non-Hispanics only,
(2) American Indian or Alaska Native,
(3) Asian,
(4) Black or African American,
(5) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,
(6) White, and
(7) Two or more races. (See the discussion in Part IV.B.1 of this
notice.)
E. The Department proposes to continue its current practice for
handling the reporting of individuals who do not self-identify a race
and/or an ethnicity. Elementary and secondary educational institutions
will continue to use observer identification when a respondent refuses
to self-identify his or her race and/or ethnicity. The Department would
not include a ``race and/or ethnicity unknown'' category in its
aggregate elementary and secondary collections of data on race and
ethnicity. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
would continue to use the category of ``nonresident alien'' as an
alternative to collecting race/ethnicity from nonresident aliens
(information that is not needed for civil rights reporting purposes).
IPEDS would also continue to include a ``race and/or ethnicity
unknown'' category for reporting aggregate data from postsecondary
institutions. Similarly, RSA will continue to use a ``race and/or
ethnicity unknown'' category for reporting aggregate data. The ``race
and/or ethnicity unknown'' category would not appear on forms provided
to postsecondary students and staff or to clients and staff of RSA
recipients. (See the discussion in Part IV.B.2 of this notice.)
F. When the Department asks educational institutions and other
recipients to report data on race and ethnicity, the Department
indicates in the instructions to the collection how long educational
institutions and other recipients are required to keep the original
individual responses from staff and students to requests for data on
race and ethnicity. In addition, at a minimum, generally, a Department
grantee or sub-grantee must retain for three years all financial and
programmatic records, supporting documents, statistical records, and
other records that are required to be maintained by the grant agreement
or the Department regulations applicable to the grant or that are
otherwise reasonably considered as pertinent under the grant or
Department regulations. One exception is when there is litigation, a
claim, an audit, or another action involving the records that has
started before the three-year period ends; in these cases the records
must be maintained until the completion of the action. (See the
discussion in Part IV.A.5 of this notice.)
G. States will continue to have discretion in determining which
racial and ethnic groups will be used for accountability and reporting
purposes under the ESEA. (See the discussion in Part IV.C of this
notice.)
H. Educational institutions and other recipients will be required
to implement this guidance, once issued in final, no later than by the
Fall of 2009 with data regarding the 2009-2010 school year,
[[Page 44868]]
and are encouraged to do so before, if feasible. (See the discussion in
Part VI. of this notice.)
IV. The Department's Proposed Implementation of OMB's 1997 Standards
for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and
Ethnicity
The Department has been carefully examining its options for
implementing the 1997 Standards for some time. Department staff have
met or spoken with a variety of individuals and organizations
representing educational institutions to ascertain their needs and
interests. The Department has consistently heard that major revisions
to the collection of data on race and ethnicity will impose a
substantial burden on educational institutions and other recipients as
they adopt new data systems or modify existing systems, prepare new
forms, and train staff at all levels to implement these changes.
Furthermore, the Department's implementation plan must be effective for
the Department's diverse uses for data on race and ethnicity, such as
research and statistical analysis, measuring accountability and student
achievement, civil rights enforcement, and monitoring of the
identification and placement of students in special education.
Finally, the Department repeatedly has heard from educational
institutions that they would prefer that the various Federal agencies
involved in data collection all use the same aggregate categories so
that the burden of implementing changes is minimized and educational
institutions are not forced to provide different and/or inconsistent
data on race and ethnicity to Federal agencies. In response to these
repeated requests, the Department decided to wait to propose its
implementation plan until after the EEOC announced its final
implementation plan, which was published in November 2005, because the
EEOC collects data on race and ethnicity for staff in elementary and
secondary schools and districts.\5\
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\5\ See EEOC, Agency Information Collection Activities: Notice
of Submission for OMB Review; Final Comment Request (EEO-1), 70 FR
71294--71303 (November 28, 2005) (hereinafter ``EEOC Notice''); this
notice is on the Internet at the following address: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeo1/
See also EEOC, Agency Information Collection
Activities: Revision of the Employer Information Report (EEO-1)
Comment Request, 68 FR 34965, 34967 (June 11, 2003).
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A. How Educational Institutions and Other Recipients Will Be
Required to Collect Data on Race and Ethnicity from Students and Staff.
This portion of the proposed guidance, Part A, presents a proposal for
how educational institutions and other recipients will collect data on
race and ethnicity; Part B, which follows, proposes how data on race
and ethnicity will be reported to the Department.
1. Educational Institutions and Other Recipients Will be Required
to Allow Students and Staff To Select One or More Races from Five
Racial Groups. Educational institutions and other recipients will be
required to allow students and staff to select one or more races from
the following five racial groups:
(1) American Indian or Alaska Native;
(2) Asian;
(3) Black or African American;
(4) Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; and
(5) White.
This is the minimum number of categories that educational
institutions and other recipients will be required to use for purposes
other than NCLB reporting. Any additional categories that educational
institutions and other recipients choose to use to collect information
must be subcategories of these categories (such as Japanese, Chinese,
Korean, and Pakistani--subcategories of Asian). Students and staff
would then be able to select one or more of these subcategories.
2. Educational Institutions and Other Recipients Will be Required
to Use a Two-Question Format When Collecting Data on Race and Ethnicity
Whenever Feasible. Educational institutions and other recipients will
be required to collect data on race and ethnicity using a two-question
format, except as provided in the following paragraph. Using the two-
question format, the first question asks whether or not the respondent
is Hispanic/Latino. The second question allows individuals to select
one or more races from the five racial groups listed in paragraph 1 of
this part, and Hispanic/Latino is NOT included in the list of racial
categories. A two-question format provides flexibility and ensures data
quality. In particular, a two-question format typically results in more
complete reporting of Hispanic ethnicity; however, the most frequent
cases of an individual not reporting a race occur for individuals who
identify themselves as Hispanic/Latino. Therefore, educational
institutions and other recipients should include instructions that
encourage students and staff to answer both questions.
A combined one-question format in which Hispanic ethnicity is
included in the list of options with the racial categories may be used
if necessary for observer-collected data on race and ethnicity. (See
the discussion in Part IV.A.3 of this notice on using self-
identification of the race and ethnicity of respondents.)
3. Educational Institutions and Other Recipients Should Allow
Students and Staff to Self-Identify Their Race and Ethnicity Unless
Self-Identification Is Not Practicable or Feasible. Educational
institutions and other recipients should allow students and staff to
self-identify their race and ethnicity unless self-identification is
not practicable or feasible. If a student or staff member does not
provide his or her race and ethnicity, educational institutions and
other recipients should ensure that the respondent is refusing to self-
identify rather than simply overlooking the question. If the
educational institution or other recipient has provided adequate
opportunity for the respondent to self-identify and he or she still
leaves the items blank or refuses to complete them, observer
identification may be used.
Educational institutions and other recipients also may allow
parents to identify the race and ethnicity of their child when the
educational institution or other recipient believes that this is
appropriate, such as when a child is too young to self-identify.
4. The Department Encourages Educational Institutions and Other
Recipients To Allow All Current Students and Staff to Re-Identify Their
Race and Ethnicity Using the 1997 Standards. Students are typically
asked their race and ethnicity upon entrance or application to an
educational institution. Staff members typically provide this
information upon employment or application for employment. The
Department encourages educational institutions and other recipients to
allow all students and staff, and other individuals that data is
collected from the opportunity to re-identify their race and ethnicity
under the 1997 Standards.\6\ Re-identification will provide all
students, staff and other individuals the opportunity to select more
than one race and to report both their ethnicity and their race
separately, and will allow all individuals who previously identified
themselves as within the Asian or Pacific Islander category the
opportunity to select either ``Asian'' or
[[Page 44869]]
``Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,'' thereby conforming all
racial and ethnic information to the 1997 Standards. If all individuals
are not provided the opportunity to identify their race and ethnicity
in a manner that is consistent with the 1997 Standards, data within
schools, districts, and States will not accurately reflect the
diversity of the population; and data on those who were permitted to
identify their race and ethnicity under the 1997 Standards will not be
easily comparable with data on those who were not permitted to identify
their race and ethnicity under the 1997 Standards.
The Department's proposal does not mandate re-identification
because we recognize the considerable one-time cost that re-
identification would entail. Also, the 1997 Standards do not require
existing records to be updated. However, the Department's proposal
reflects our expectation that most educational institutions and other
recipients will provide all respondents the opportunity to re-identify
their race and ethnicity under the 1997 Standards.
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\6\ This recommendation is consistent with the recommendations
of the Education Information Advisory Committee of the Chief State
School Officers and the Policy Panel on Racial/Ethnic Data
Collection, a panel sponsored by the National Postsecondary
Education Cooperative, of the National Center for Educational
Statistics and the National Science Foundation in April 1999. Both
have recommended that all respondents be permitted to identify their
race and ethnicity under the 1997 Standards.
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The proposal requires educational institutions and other recipients
to provide students and staff who enter an educational institution or
other recipient program on or after the implementation deadline the
opportunity to identify their race and ethnicity in a manner that is
consistent with this proposed Department guidance. Thus, those
educational institutions and other recipients that do not conduct a re-
identification will transition to the new standard over time as new
staff and students enter.
5. Maintaining the Original Responses from Staff and Students to
Requests for Data on Race and Ethnicity. When the Department requests
data on race and ethnicity from educational institutions and other
recipients, the Department indicates in the instructions to the
collection how long each office asks, or requires, educational
institutions to keep the original individual responses to the request.
At a minimum, under 34 CFR 74.53 and 80.42, generally, a Department
grantee or sub-grantee must retain for three years all financial and
programmatic records, supporting documents, statistical records, and
other records that are required to be maintained by the grant agreement
or the Department regulations applicable to the grant or that are
otherwise reasonably considered as pertinent to the grant agreement or
Department regulations and these would include records on race and or
ethnicity data and the individual responses. One exception is when
there is litigation, a claim, an audit, or another action involving the
records that has started before the three-year period ends; in these
cases the records must be maintained until the completion of the
action.
If additional information on the race or ethnicity of a respondent
is needed for the Department to perform its functions fully and
effectively, the Department will request this information from
educational institutions and other recipients, such as when the Office
for Civil Rights (OCR) requests information to investigate a complaint
or undertake a compliance review under 20 U.S.C. 3413(c)(1) and 34 CFR
100.6(b).
B. The Aggregate Categories Educational Institutions and Other
Recipients Will be Required to Use to Report Data on Race and Ethnicity
to the Department and How to Handle Missing Data. In contrast to the
discussion in Part IV.A of this notice, which addressed how educational
institutions and other recipients will collect data on race and
ethnicity, this section will examine how educational institutions and
other recipients will report these data on race and ethnicity to the
Department.
1. The Aggregate Categories Educational Institutions and Other
Recipients Will be Required to Use to Report Data on Race and Ethnicity
to the Department. The Department proposes to have educational
institutions and other recipients report aggregated data on race and
ethnicity in the following 7 categories:
(1) Hispanics of any race; and, for Non-Hispanics only,
(2) American Indian or Alaska Native,
(3) Asian,
(4) Black or African American,
(5) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,
(6) White, and
(7) Two or more races.
The definitions in the 1997 Standards will be used for each
category. (See the discussion in Part III.A of this notice.)
The Department proposes to have reports use these 7 aggregate
categories for several reasons. Reporting these 7 aggregate categories
allows data on race and ethnicity to achieve an appropriate balance
that reflects the growing diversity of our Nation while minimizing the
implementation and reporting burden placed on educational institutions
and other recipients. The growing diversity is illustrated by the fact
that in the 2000 Census, children and youth reported being of more than
one race at a substantial rate--more than twice the rate of adults.\7\
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\7\ For individuals 18 and over, 1.9 percent (3,969,342 in the
2000 Census) of individuals reported more than one race; while 4
percent (2,856,886) of individuals under 18 reported more than one
race.See The Two or More Races Population.
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Finally, the proposed approach provides for reporting the race and
ethnicity of individuals in a manner that permits effective analysis of
data by agencies that are responsible for civil rights monitoring and
enforcement. In those instances in which more detailed information is
needed by civil rights monitoring and enforcement agencies or other
offices in the Department about individuals in the ``two or more
races'' category, educational institutions and other recipients will be
contacted directly for more detailed information about the individuals.
The Department's proposed aggregate reporting categories do not
separately identify the race of Hispanics. The Department's proposal
reflects its assessment that the inclusion of Hispanics of any race in
one category is appropriate in light of both the implementation burden
and cost that these changes will place on educational institutions and
other recipients and the Department's need to adopt an approach that
provides the Department sufficient information to fulfill its various
functions. If the Department required the reporting of the same racial
categories for Hispanics as non-Hispanics, 6 additional aggregate
categories would be reported to the Department.
The cost and burden of these 6 additional cells would be
substantial because each racial and ethnic category is often cross
tabulated with other relevant information, such as the individual's
sex, disability category, or educational placement, thereby multiplying
the number of categories in which information must be reported. The
Department has determined that it can effectively fulfill its
responsibilities that involve information on race and ethnicity if
Hispanics of any race are reported in one category. The Department
notes that its proposal not to separately aggregate Hispanics by race
is consistent with the final implementation plan of the EEOC.
Finally, the Department's reporting requirement for data on
Hispanics in one category is different from the Department's collection
requirements discussed in Part IV.5 of this notice, which require
educational institutions and other recipients to maintain information
on the racial identification of Hispanics. As discussed above, the
[[Page 44870]]
Department will require educational institutions and other recipients
to keep the original individual responses from staff and students to
requests for data on race and ethnicity for the length of time
indicated in the instructions to the collection. If the Department
determines that additional information will be needed to perform its
functions effectively in a specific instance, the Department will
request this additional information from educational institutions and
other recipients.
The EEOC published a notice in November 2005 that provided for the
use of 7 categories to collect data on race and ethnicity from private
employers. These 7 categories are:
(1) Hispanics of any race; and, for non-Hispanics,
(2) American Indian or Alaska Native,
(3) Asian,
(4) Black or African American,
(5) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,
(6) White, and
(7) Two or more races.
It is the Department's understanding that EEOC intends to use these
7 categories to collect data on race and ethnicity from LEAs on their
employees. The adoption of 7 categories for the Department collections
would mean that the Department and EEOC would collect the same
categories of data on race and ethnicity from LEAs.
2. Reporting on Individuals Who Do Not Self-Identify a Race or
Ethnicity. Some individuals will refuse to self-identify their race
and/or their ethnicity. The Department currently has a different
approach for how educational institutions and other recipients may
handle such respondents at the elementary and secondary level as
compared with the postsecondary level and with adults served under the
RSA programs. Currently elementary and secondary institutions must use
observer identification if a student (or his or her parents) does not
self-identify a race, and postsecondary institutions also may use
observer identification. In addition, since 1990, postsecondary
institutions have been permitted to report aggregate information on
students or staff members who do not identify a race for the IPEDS in a
``race unknown'' category. Similarly, RSA recipients have been
permitted to report aggregate information on its clients and staff
using a ``race unknown'' category when clients or staff do not identify
a race.
The Department proposes to continue its current practice for
handling missing data.\8\ Elementary and secondary institutions and
other recipients would continue to use observer identification when a
respondent leaves blank or refuses to self-identify his or her race
and/or ethnicity. The Department would not include a ``race and/or
ethnicity unknown'' category in its aggregate elementary and secondary
collections of data on race and ethnicity. IPEDS would continue to
include a ``race and/or ethnicity unknown'' category for reporting
aggregate data from postsecondary institutions. Similarly, the RSA will
continue to use a ``race and/or ethnicity unknown'' category for
reporting aggregate data. The ``race and/or ethnicity unknown''
category would not appear on forms provided to postsecondary students
and staff or RSA recipients' clients and staff.
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\8\ The Department proposes to continue to include a ``race
unknown'' category in IPEDS because the experience of the National
Center for Education Statistics has shown that (1) a substantial
number of college students have refused to identify a race and (2)
there is often not a convenient mechanism for college administrators
to use observer identification. RSA grantees have had similar
experiences.
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C. Multiple Race Responses under the No Child Left Behind Act of
2001. The creation of a multiple race aggregation category implicates
several requirements under the ESEA as reauthorized by NCLB regarding
race and ethnicity. First, States, districts, and schools are held
accountable for making adequate yearly progress (AYP) based, among
other factors, on the proficiency in reading/language arts and
mathematics of major racial and ethnic groups of students.\9\ Neither
ESEA nor the ESEA regulations define what is a ``major'' racial and/or
ethnic group. States have this responsibility and the Department checks
to ensure that States carry out that responsibility.
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\9\ 20 U.S.C. 6311(b)(2)(B) and 6311(b)(2)(C)(v)(I)(bb); (34 CFR
200.13).
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Second, each State and school district that receives ESEA Title I
funds must issue a report card that includes information on student
achievement at each proficiency level on the State assessment,
disaggregated by race and ethnicity, among other factors, at the State,
district, and school levels.\10\ The same racial and ethnic groups that
are examined to determine AYP are typically the groups examined in
State report cards.\11\
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\10\ 20 U.S.C. 6311(h)(1) and (2).
\11\ 20 U.S.C. 6311(h)(1)(C)(i).
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Finally, the creation of a ``two or more races'' group will affect
two provisions that require comparisons to prior years' data. State
report cards must report the most recent two-year trend in student
achievement by racial and ethnic group.\12\ In addition, to take
advantage of the ``safe harbor'' method of making AYP (where a school
can make AYP by decreasing the percent of students who are not
proficient on statewide assessments by 10%), a State must compare a
group's current assessment data to the prior year's data, and must
examine the group's performance on the State's additional indicator,
including its graduation rate.\13\
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\12\ 20 U.S.C. 6311(h)(1)(C)(iv).
\13\ 20 U.S.C. 6311(b)(2)(I)(i); (34 CFR 200.20(b)).
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States will continue to have discretion in determining what racial
and ethnic groups will be deemed ``major'' for purposes of fulfilling
these ESEA requirements. The States vary substantially in the number
and distribution of multiple race individuals and are in the best
position to decide how these requirements should be applied to their
populations. States implementing this new guidance will not necessarily
be changing the race and ethnicity categories used for AYP purposes. If
a State makes changes to the racial and ethnic categories it will use
under the ESEA, the State must submit an amendment to its Title I
accountability plan to the Department.
D. Bridging Data to Prior Years' Data.
States, educational institutions and other recipients also may
propose to ``bridge'' the ``two or more races'' category into single
race categories or the new single race categories into the previous
single race categories. Bridging involves adopting a method for being
able to link the new data collected using the two-part question with
data collected before the publication of this guidance by the
Department. If States, educational institutions and other recipients do
bridge data, the bridging method should be documented and available for
the Department to review, if necessary.
One method is to redistribute the new data collected under this
guidance using the new racial categories and relate them back to the
racial categories used before the publication of this guidance. For
example, if a State's new data collection results in 200 students
falling in the ``two or more races'' category at the same time that
there is a combined drop in the number in the two single race
categories of Black or African American students and White students,
the State can adopt a method to link the 200 students in the ``two or
more races'' category to the previously used Black and White
categories.
Another method is assigning a proportion of the ``two or more
races'' respondents into the new five single-race categories. If
educational institutions or other recipients choose to bridge, they may
use one of several bridging techniques. For example, they
[[Page 44871]]
may select one of the bridging techniques in OMB's Provisional Guidance
on the Implementation of the 1997 Standards for Federal Data on Race
and Ethnicity.\14\ Educational institutions and other recipients also
may choose to use the allocation rules developed by OMB in its Guidance
on Aggregation and Allocation of Data on Race for Use in Civil Rights
Monitoring and Enforcement.\15\ If a bridging technique is adopted, the
same bridging technique must be used when reporting data throughout the
educational institution or other recipient. For example, the same
bridging technique should be used by the entire State for the purposes
of NCLB.
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\14\ See OMB, Provisional Guidance on the Implementation of the
1997 Standards for Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, December 15,
2000; http://www.whitehouse.gov/ omb/inforeg/ statpolicy.html#dr
(Appendix C).
\15\ For civil rights monitoring and enforcement purposes, OMB
issued guidance in March 2000 on how Federal agencies can allocate
multiple race responses to a single race response category. Multiple
race responses that combine one minority race and white, for
example, are to be allocated to the minority race. OMB, Bulletin 00-
02, Guidance on Aggregation and Allocation of Data on Race for Use
in Civil Rights Monitoring and Enforcement, (March 9, 2000); http://www.whitehouse.gov/
omb/ bulletins/ b00-02.html (OMB 2000 Guidance).
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V. OMB Guidance on Aggregation and Allocation of Multiple Race
Responses for Use in Civil Rights Monitoring and Enforcement
OMB issued guidance in March 2000, for how Federal agencies will
aggregate and allocate multiple race data for civil rights monitoring
and enforcement.\16\ The guidance was issued to ensure that as the 1997
Standards are implemented, Federal agencies maintain their ``ability to
monitor compliance with laws that offer protections for those who
historically have experienced discrimination.'' Furthermore, OMB sought
to ensure consistency across Federal agencies and to minimize the
reporting burden for institutions such as businesses and schools that
report aggregate data on race and ethnicity to Federal agencies.
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\16\ OMB 2000 Guidance.
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This OMB guidance encourages Federal agencies to collect aggregated
information on a given population using the five single race categories
and the four most common double race combinations. These four double
race combinations are: (1) American Indian or Alaska Native and White,
(2) Asian and White, (3) Black or African American and White, and (4)
American Indian or Alaska Native and Black or African American. In
addition to these categories, the March 2000 OMB guidance also
encourages the aggregation of data on any multiple race combinations
that comprise more than one percent of the population of interest to
the Federal agency. The Bulletin also encourages the reporting of all
remaining multiple race data by including a ``balance'' category so
that all data sum to 100 percent.
The OMB guidance also addresses how Federal agencies, including the
Department, should allocate multiple race responses for the purpose of
assessing and taking action to ensure civil rights compliance. The
Department believes that requiring educational institutions and other
recipients to report these four most common double race reporting
combinations or information on multiple race individuals who represent
more than one percent of the population on a state-by-state basis or
other geographical basis would impose a substantial burden on
educational institutions and other recipients without a corresponding
benefit for recurring, aggregate data collections. However, in order to
ensure that the Department has access to this information when needed
for civil rights enforcement and other program purposes, the Department
proposes to require educational institutions and other recipients to
keep the original individual responses for data on race and ethnicity.
This approach will provide the Department with access to this important
information when needed. (See discussion in Part IV.A.5. of this
notice.)
VI. The Implementation Schedule
Educational institutions and other recipients have consistently
informed the Department that they will need three years from the time
that the Department provided them final guidance to implement the new
race and ethnicity standards.
Educational institutions and other recipients will be required to
implement this guidance, once issued in final, by the Fall of 2009.
Although not required to do so, educational institutions and other
recipients already collecting individual-level data in the manner
specified by this notice are encouraged to immediately begin reporting
aggregate data to the Department in accordance with this notice.
Many educational institutions and other recipients have already
taken significant steps to develop and implement new data systems for
collecting, aggregating, and reporting data on race and ethnicity.
Since the mid-1990s and certainly subsequent to the October 30, 1997,
issuance of the 1997 Standards, the Department has been meeting with
educational agencies and organizations regarding the need for changes
to the collection of data on race and ethnicity to be consistent with
the 1997 Standards. The opportunity for students and parents on their
behalf to report their multiple race identity is vitally important.
Multiple race children and their families were one of the primary
impetuses for initiating the review of and modifying the standards.
Also, with increasing automation of educational data systems, the
Department believes that less than three years should be needed to
implement data systems consistent with guidance in this area. The
Department will work expeditiously to review any comments we receive
and issue final guidance.
The Department recognizes that its delay in issuing proposed
guidance, including its decision to delay issuing guidance until after
EEOC issued its guidance in final form as discussed in Part IV of this
notice, may result in implementation difficulties for some educational
institutions and other recipients. The Department regrets any
inconvenience that its delay in issuing guidance may cause.
Nevertheless, given the vital importance of collecting data on race and
ethnicity under the 1997 Standards and the fact that educational
institutions and other recipients are being provided a considerable
amount of time to comply with the 1997 Standards, the Department
expects that all educational institutions and other recipients will
meet this deadline.
Electronic Access to This Document
You may view this document, as well as all other Department of
Education documents published in the Federal Register, in text or Adobe
Portable Document Format (PDF) on the Internet at the following site:
http://www.ed.gov/news/fedregister.
To use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available
free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S.
Government Printing Office (GPO), toll free, at 1-888-293-6498; or in
the Washington, DC, area at (202) 512-1530.
Note: The official version of this document is the document
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the
official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal
Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/index.html
.
Dated: July 31, 2006.
Margaret Spellings,
Secretary of Education.
[FR Doc. 06-6695 Filed 8-4-06; 8:45 am]
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