The duties of the Center are to collect, analyze, and disseminate statistics and other information related to education in the United States and in other nations, including—
(1) collecting, acquiring, compiling (where appropriate, on a State by State basis), and disseminating full and complete statistics on the condition and progress of education, at the preschool, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels in the United States, including data on—
(A) State and local education reform activities;
(B) student achievement at all levels of education;
(C) secondary school completions, dropouts, and adult literacy;
(D) educational access to and opportunity for postsecondary education, including data on financial aid to postsecondary students;
(E) teaching, including data on course-taking, instruction, the conditions of the education workplace, and the supply of, and demand for, teachers, which may include data on the proportions of women and men, cross-tabulated by race or ethnicity, teaching in subjects in which such individuals have been historically underrepresented;
(F) the learning and teaching environment, including data on libraries;
(G) the incidence, frequency, seriousness, and nature of violence affecting students, school personnel, and other individuals participating in school activities, as well as other indices of school safety;
(H) the financing and management of education, including data on revenues and expenditures; and
(I) the social and economic status of children;
(2) conducting and publishing reports and analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics;
(3) conducting longitudinal studies, as well as regular and special surveys and data collections, necessary to report on the condition and progress of education;
(4) collecting, analyzing, cross-tabulating, and reporting, to the extent feasible, so as to provide information by gender, race, socioeconomic status, limited-English proficiency, and other population characteristics when such disaggregated information would facilitate educational and policy decisionmaking;
(5) assisting public and private educational agencies, organizations, and institutions in improving and automating statistical and data collection activities; and
(6) acquiring and disseminating data on educational activities and student achievement in the United States compared with foreign nations.
The Commissioner may establish a program to train employees of public and private educational agencies, organizations, and institutions in the use of the Center's standard statistical procedures and concepts and may establish a fellows program to appoint such employees as temporary fellows at the Center in order to assist the Center in carrying out its duties.
(Pub. L. 103–382, title IV, §404, Oct. 20, 1994, 108 Stat. 4031.)
Pub. L. 102–325, title XIV, §1406, July 22, 1992, 106 Stat. 818, required Secretary of Education, acting through National Center for Educational Statistics, to conduct special purpose survey on biennial basis of factors associated with participation of low-income, disadvantaged, non-English language background, disabled, and minority students in various types of postsecondary education, to conduct certain consultations, to report relevant data and conclusions from the survey to Congress on annual basis, to submit a plan to ensure participation of at-risk students in higher education, and to make an interagency agreement with National Science Foundation relating to existing panel study of income dynamics, prior to repeal by Pub. L. 105–332, §6(b)(2), Oct. 31, 1998, 112 Stat. 3128.
Pub. L. 99–498, title XIII, §1303, Oct. 17, 1986, 100 Stat. 1580, as amended by Pub. L. 100–50, §23(3), June 3, 1987, 101 Stat. 362, required Secretary of Education, through Office of Educational Research and Improvement, to conduct studies of escalating cost of higher education, student aid recipients, current and future supply and demand of teachers, and certain financial aid formulas for students in postsecondary education institutions and to submit reports to Congress not later than Sept. 30, 1990, prior to repeal by Pub. L. 105–332, §6(a), Oct. 31, 1998, 112 Stat. 3127.
Pub. L. 98–211, §24(b), Dec. 8, 1983, 97 Stat. 1419, provided that: “The National Center for Education Statistics shall not terminate the study of the condition of education for Hispanic Americans unless specifically required or authorized to do so by law.”
This section is referred to in sections 1232j, 7909 of this title.