About UsStrategic Plan (released March 2023)
To fulfill our Mission, NCES has prioritized the following four goals:
Click on a goal to see the objectives under each goal; hover over a goal for context.
Develop and disseminate products that align with the needs of the 21st-century education data ecosystem.
Amid today's monumental educational challenges and disruptions, educators, researchers, and policymakers need valid and reliable data and insights into the condition of education to advance opportunities to learn and improve educational outcomes for all students. NCES's role and history as the nation's independent education statistical agency makes it well-positioned to bring the power of data to help the field of education, from early childhood through postsecondary, to improve the academic trajectory of all students.
Develop and disseminate products that align with the needs of the 21st-century education data ecosystem.
- 1.1 Keep the Center's scope of work aligned with the needs of the 21st-century education data ecosystem to ensure the relevance and value of the Center's work.
- 1.2 Execute a robust and coordinated dissemination strategy for the Center's data products through a range of formats and platforms to engage and inform key audiences.
- 1.3 Monitor the use and impact of NCES products to understand how they address the nation's data needs within the U.S. data ecosystems.
Improve and innovate the Center's operations, management, and support for legislative and regulatory requirements.
NCES will expand upon its investments in dynamic systems and tools to ensure the continued excellence, relevance, efficiency, usability, and improvement of education statistics to fulfill its mission and mandates, and to support resounding improvements in opportunities and outcomes for all students.
Improve and innovate the Center's operations, management, and support for legislative and regulatory requirements.
- 2.1 Increase the application of R&D and data science to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and use of NCES data products in ever-evolving data ecosystems.
- 2.2 Apply a continuous quality improvement model to the Center's publication pipeline to improve timeliness, relevance, usage, and, ultimately, impact of NCES data products.
- 2.3 Institute a systematic approach to administration management, planning, operations, and coordination to create more flexible, nimble, and dynamic systems for meeting legislative and regulatory requirements as well as for greater efficiency and collaboration across the Center.
- 2.4 Make improvements to the Statistical Standards to better reflect current methodologies and data dissemination practices.
- 2.5 Develop Psychometric Standards to establish a common set of guidelines, criteria, and procedures across all NCES programs involving psychometric work to ensure that the programs yield data that allow reliable, valid, and fair inferences.
Foster and leverage mutually beneficial partnerships with practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and government agencies at all levels.
By continuously strengthening communication and collaboration among key stakeholders across policy and practice and building diverse coalitions, NCES can improve the quality, timeliness, and relevance of education statistics to support advances in the field.
Foster and leverage mutually beneficial partnerships with practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and government agencies at all levels.
- 3.1 Continue to develop and improve partnerships with states, school districts, leading education associations, and other stakeholders to increase support for participation in NCES studies and address their data needs.
- 3.2 Improve external communication and coordination to increase awareness and use of NCES data, products, and services—including collaborative data governance, linkages, and capacity-building.
- 3.3 Improve internal communications to strengthen collaboration and partnership within NCES and across IES and ED.
Embed the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in all aspects of the Center's work, studies, and data products.
A range of data indicators collected by NCES highlight the persistent disparities in academic outcomes among students by race, ethnicity, geography, and socio-economic status. There is a critical need for NCES to continue to identify and monitor the full range of indicators that illuminate inequitable opportunities and inform solutions for helping all students reach their fullest potential. This will require intentional integration of DEIA principles into the collection of data and development of products, as well as an investment in the staffing and planning necessary to reflect and foster the equitable outcomes we seek.
Embed the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in all aspects of the Center's work, studies, and data products.
- 4.1 Update NCES's Statistical Standards to integrate the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
- 4.2 Maintain and develop measures of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in education to ensure NCES data remain relevant for policymaking.
- 4.3 Invest in NCES's human capital to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
- 4.4 Monitor NCES contractors' activities and performance to achieve diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in all aspects of their work.
