2011-12 Civil Rights Data Collection Questions and Answers




1. What is the purpose of the Civil Rights Data Collection?

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is to obtain data related to the nation's public school districts and elementary and secondary schools’ obligation to provide equal educational opportunity. To fulfill this goal, the CRDC collects a variety of information, including student enrollment and educational programs and services data that are disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency, and disability. The CRDC is a longstanding and important aspect of the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) overall strategy for administering and enforcing the civil rights statutes for which it is responsible. This information is also used by other ED offices as well as policymakers and researchers outside of ED.

2. Under what authority does the Department conduct the CRDC?

The CRDC is a mandatory data collection, authorized under the statutes and regulations implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and under the Department of Education Organization Act (20 U.S.C. § 3413). The regulations implementing these provisions can be found at 34 CFR 100.6(b); 34 CFR 106.71; and 34 CFR 104.61.

3. When was the CRDC first conducted?

The CRDC was first conducted in 1968.

4. How are school districts chosen for the CRDC?

The 2011-12 CRDC will collect data from a universe of all public schools and school districts, including juvenile justice facilities, charter schools, alternative schools, and schools serving students with disabilities. The last time that the CRDC was collected from a universe of schools and school districts was in 2000. The 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2009-10 CRDCs collected data from a sample of school districts.

5. How are the data in the CRDC collected?

School districts have the option of providing their data through a web-based survey or through submitting an electronic file. Some state education agencies provide all the CRDC data for the school districts in their state.

6. What changes have occurred to the CRDC?

There are several important changes that began with the 2009-10 CRDC:

7. What data items are collected by the 2011-12 CRDC?

The following is a list of the data that the 2011-12 CRDC will collect.  Unless otherwise indicated, all student data is disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, disability, and LEP status.  

PART 1

School level

District level

PART 2

School level

District level

For a mock-up of the 2011-12 CRDC please visit: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/data.html

8. Which data for the CRDC are being collected through other data collections in ED?

To reduce the burden on LEAs, the CRDC no longer collects disaggregated school data on the number of students served under the IDEA by disability category or educational environment. Instead, the CRDC uses the data that LEAs submitted to the applicable state education agency (SEA) for the purpose of reporting required data under the IDEA. Likewise, high school completer data was no longer collected by the CRDC because ED already collects that data from SEAs through the EDFacts collection.

9. How can I find out more about OCR and the CRDC?

For more information about OCR, please visit:
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/index.html.

For more information about the CRDC, please visit:
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/data.html

To view the 2009-10 CRDC Data, please visit:
http://ocrdata.ed.gov

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Last Modified: 01/10/2020