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This study includes a nationally representative survey designed to estimate middle school teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT), curriculum use, and professional development. The questionnaire and sample were built on a similar study conducted in 2005-06, Learning Mathematics for Teaching (LMT): Survey of Middle School Mathematics (Hill, 2007; ICPSR 33421).

The connection between the studies and the nationally representative nature of the data allow for the comparison of teachers' curriculum use and MKT across time periods. Recruitment and data collection for the present study occurred during the 2015-2016 school year. Video capture in U.S. middle school mathematics classrooms was also conducted as part of this study; however, the low response rate to that component of the study led us to exclude it from this data repository.

This study was conducted by researchers at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University (CEPR) and the University of Michigan's Survey Research Operations (SRO) at the Institute for Social Research (ISR), with funding from the National Science Foundation.

This study involved random assignment of 80 school-based teams of educators to one of four conditions: (1) lesson study supported by a fractions resource kit; (2) lesson study without the fractions resource kit; (3) fractions resource kit without lesson study; or (4) practice-as-usual (no fractions resource kit, asked to refrain from lesson study). Teams were mailed the materials for their condition and used them locally. Each educator team included at least one grade 3 or 4 teacher who agreed to video record three fractions lessons, and their students comprise the student sample. Outcome measures focus on instruction, student fractions knowledge, teachers' fractions knowledge, beliefs about teaching-learning, and professional learning perceptions.

The Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) is a project that was funded by the National Science Foundation in 1985 and was designed to examine the development of: (1) student attitudes toward and achievement in science, (2) student attitudes toward and achievement in mathematics, and (3) student interest in and plans for a career in science, mathematics, or engineering, during middle school, high school, and the first four years post-high school. The relative influence parents, home, teachers, school, peers, media, and selected informal learning experiences had on these developmental patterns was considered as well.

The older LSAY cohort, Cohort One, consisted of a national sample of 2,829 tenth-grade students in public high schools throughout the United States. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, ending four years after high school in 1994. Cohort Two, consisted of a national sample of 3,116 seventh-grade students in public schools that served as feeder schools to the same high schools in which the older cohort was enrolled. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, concluding with a telephone interview approximately one year after the end of high school in 1994.

Beginning in the fall of 1987, the LSAY collected a wide array of information including: (1) a science achievement test and a mathematics achievement test each fall, (2) an attitudinal and experience questionnaire at the beginning and end of each school year, (3) reports about education and experience from all science and math teachers in each school, (4) reports on classroom practice by each science and math teacher serving a LSAY student, (5) an annual 25-minute telephone interview with one parent of each student, and (6) extensive school-level information from the principal of each study school.

In 2006, the NSF funded a proposal to re-contact the original LSAY students (then in their mid-30's) to resume data collection to determine their educational and occupational outcomes. Through an extensive tracking activity which involved: (1) online tracking, (2) newsletter mailing, (3) calls to parents and other relatives, (4) use of alternative online search methods, and (5) questionnaire mailing, more than 95 percent of the original sample of 5,945 LSAY students were located or accounted for. In addition to re-contacting the students, the proposal defined a new eligible sample of approximately 5,000 students and these young adults were asked to complete a survey in 2007. A second survey was conducted in the fall of 2008 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the civic scientific literacy of these young adults, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A third survey was conducted in the fall of 2009 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the participants' use of selected informal science education resources, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A fourth survey was conducted in the fall of 2010 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes, as well as provided questions about the participants' interactions with their children, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. Finally, a fifth survey was conducted in the fall of 2011 that sought to gather updated information about education outcomes and included an expanded occupation battery for all participants, as well as an expanded spousal information battery for all participants. The 2011 questionnaire also included items about the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan along with attitudinal items about nuclear power and global climate change. To date approximately 3,200 participants responded to the 2011 survey.

There were no surveys conducted in 2012 or 2013. Beginning in 2014 the LSAY was funded by the National Institute on Aging for five years. This data release adds the 2017 data to the previous data release that included data through 2016.

The public release data files include information collected from the national probability sample students, their parents, and the science and mathematics teachers in the students' schools. The data covers the initial seven years, beginning in the fall of 1987, as well as the data collected in the 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 questionnaires.

Part 1: LSAY Merged Cohort (Base File) contains student and parent data from both cohorts of the LSAY from 1987-1994 and student follow-up data from 2007-2011 and 2014-2017. Additionally, Parts 2 - 5 contain information gathered from two teacher background questionnaires and two principal questionnaires from 1987-1994.

The Social Capital and Children's Development data were collected in a study of the causal effects of social capital on levels and inequalities of children's social and cognitive development during the early elementary years. The study included 52 schools in Phoenix and San Antonio, including 3,084 first graders and their families, and over 200 teachers, with half the schools randomly selected for the intervention and half serving as controls. Children from low-income Latino families were a special focus of the study. The experimental design of this study allowed for testing of the causal role of social capital. Social capital here refers to trust and shared expectations embedded in social networks of parents, teachers, and children. For young children, social capital operates primarily through their relationships with their parents, enhancing development through mechanisms of social support and social control.

The research design was experimental: social capital was manipulated through a well-tested randomized intervention, Families and Schools Together (FAST), that enhanced social capital among parents, teachers, and children through an intensive after-school program and a 2-year follow-up program. FAST is intended to reduce parental isolation, enhance family engagement with schools, and strengthen family functioning; that is, to increase social capital between families and schools, among families, and within families to improve children's education and life-long outcomes. Key aspects of child development were assessed, including (a) social skills and problem behavior from standardized behavioral ratings by parents and teachers, and (b) grade retention, attendance rates, and third-grade reading and mathematics scores from school records. Social capital was measured with repeated surveys of teachers and parents that address the extent of social networks, parent involvement, trust, and shared expectations among parents, between parents and schools, and between parents and children. Demographic variables of this study include native language, years in the United States, date of birth/age, race/ethnicity, gender, and household composition.

Data users can find the latest version of the entire Longitudinal Study of American Youth data collection, including years 1988-1994 and 2007-2014 on ICPSR's website. See ICPSR 30263. Also, data users may explore NADAC's Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY), Seventh Grade Data, 1987-1988; 2015-2016.

The Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) is a project that was funded by the National Science Foundation in 1985 and was designed to examine the development of: (1) student attitudes toward and achievement in science, (2) student attitudes toward and achievement in mathematics, and (3) student interest in and plans for a career in science, mathematics, or engineering, during middle school, high school, and the first four years post-high school. The relative influence parents, home, teachers, school, peers, media, and selected informal learning experiences had on these developmental patterns were considered as well.

The older LSAY cohort, Cohort One, consisted of a national sample of 2,829 tenth-grade students in public high schools throughout the United States. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, ending four years after high school in 1994. Cohort Two, consisted of a national sample of 3,116 seventh-grade students in public schools that served as feeder schools to the same high schools in which the older cohort was enrolled. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, concluding with a telephone interview approximately one year after the end of high school in 1994.

Beginning in the fall of 1987, the LSAY collected a wide array of information including: (1) a science achievement test and a mathematics achievement test each fall, (2) an attitudinal and experience questionnaire at the beginning and end of each school year, (3) reports about education and experience from all science and math teachers in each school, (4) reports on classroom practice by each science and math teacher serving a LSAY student, (5) an annual 25-minute telephone interview with one parent of each student, and (6) extensive school-level information from the principal of each study school.

In 2006, the NSF funded a proposal to re-contact the original LSAY students (then in their mid-30's) to resume data collection to determine their educational and occupational outcomes. Through an extensive tracking activity which involved: (1) online tracking, (2) newsletter mailing, (3) calls to parents and other relatives, (4) use of alternative online search methods, and (5) questionnaire mailing, more than 95 percent of the original sample of 5,945 LSAY students were located or accounted for. In addition to re-contacting the students, the proposal defined a new eligible sample of approximately 5,000 students and these young adults were asked to complete a survey in 2007. A second survey was conducted in the fall of 2008 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the civic scientific literacy of these young adults, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A third survey was conducted in the fall of 2009 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the participants' use of selected informal science education resources, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A fourth survey was conducted in the fall of 2010 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes, as well as provided questions about the participants' interactions with their children, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. Finally, a fifth survey was conducted in the fall of 2011 that sought to gather updated information about education outcomes and included an expanded occupation battery for all participants, as well as an expanded spousal information battery for all participants. The 2011 questionnaire also included items about the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan along with attitudinal items about nuclear power and global climate change. To date approximately 3,200 participants responded to the 2011 survey.

The Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) is a project that was originally funded by the National Science Foundation in 1985 and was designed to examine the development of: (1) student attitudes toward and achievement in science, (2) student attitudes toward and achievement in mathematics, and (3) student interest in and plans for a career in science, mathematics, or engineering, during middle school, high school, and the first four years post-high school. The relative influence parents, home, teachers, school, peers, media, and selected informal learning experiences had on these developmental patterns was considered as well.

The LSAY was designed to select and follow two cohorts of students in 1987. Cohort One was a national sample of approximately 3,000 tenth grade students in public high schools throughout the United States. Cohort Two, consisted of a national sample of 3,116 seventh grade students in public schools that served as feeder schools to the same high schools in which the older cohort was enrolled. Data collection continues for Cohorts One and Two, 31 years after the study began.

In the fall of 2015, data collection began on a third cohort: Cohort Three. Cohort Three consisted of 3,721 students in the seventh grade in public schools throughout the United States. The data in this release provides seventh grade comparison data across a 28-year timespan: Cohort Two (1987-1988) and Cohort Three (2015-2016).

This study includes arts-related variables about student and parent participation in music, art, literary, dance, and theatrical pursuits. For a more details please see Description of Variables.

The Teacher Quality Grants Texas project was a broad, evaluative study with the goal of better understanding the professional growth in teachers who self-selected to participate in focused, long-term professional development in mathematics or science provided by the Teacher Quality Granting Program (TQGP). The TQGP, funded through No Child Left Behind (NCLB), aimed to improve the quality of teaching which, in turn, leads to improved student achievement.

The 2014-2016 cycle of this study includes administrative and qualitative data, much of which contain observation notes and comments from trained raters observing teachers in their classroom environments. The data also include ratings on classroom activities, organization, student attention, type of student cognition, instructional inquiry demonstrated by teacher, and types of assessment. Teachers in the classroom were also rated on instructional, discourse, assessment, and curriculum factors. Additional, the data contain pre- and post-scores of content tests taken by teachers at the high school level. Administrative data on teachers includes academic degree type, college hours in project topic area, whether teacher had an alternative emergency certificate, grade level(s) taught, teaching assignments related to grant topic area, certification exams passed before and after the grant project, teaching assignment after grant project, reason for leaving grant project, and number of project days and hours by year.

Additional qualitative data in this study includes participant reflective writings and interview transcripts. Teachers responded to a series of eight reflective prompts designed to elicit participant growth in subject matter, pedagogy, use of instructional technology, and development within a professional community of practice. A subset of teacher-participants were also interviewed by phone, during the summer following a year of grant participation.

The Teacher Quality Grants Texas project is a broad, ongoing evaluative study with the goal of better understanding the professional growth in teachers who have self-selected to participate in focused, long-term professional development in mathematics or science provided by the Teacher Quality Granting Program (TQGP). The TQGP, funded through No Child Left Behind (NCLB), aims to improve the quality of teaching which, in turn, leads to improved student achievement.

The 2012-2014 cycle of this study includes administrative and qualitative data, much of which contain observation notes and comments from trained raters observing teachers in their classroom environments. The data include ratings on classroom activities, organization, student attention, type of student cognition, instructional inquiry demonstrated by teacher, and types of assessment. Teachers in the classroom were also rated on instructional, discourse, assessment, and curriculum factors. Additionally, the data contain pre- and post-scores of content tests taken by teachers at the high school level. Administrative data on teachers includes academic degree type, college hours in project topic area, whether teacher had an alternative emergency certificate, grade level(s) taught, teaching assignments related to grant topic area, certification exams passed before and after the grant project, teaching assignment after grant project, reason for leaving grant project, and number of project days and hours by year.

Additional qualitative data in this study includes participant reflective writings and interview transcripts. Teachers responded to a series of eight reflective prompts designed to elicit participant growth in subject matter, pedagogy, use of instructional technology, and development within a professional community of practice. A subset of teacher-participants were also interviewed by phone, during the summer following a year of grant participation.

From 2012 through 2016, MDRC, a non-profit research organization, conducted an evaluation of the scale-up effort of Success for All PowerTeaching in middle-school math. PowerTeaching, a structured cooperative learning program, was designed to do just that. The study was funded by an Investing in Innovation (i3) fund from the U.S. Department of Education. The expansion of PowerTeaching through an i3 grant offers the education field a unique opportunity to learn what it takes to help teachers create cooperative learning environments in their classrooms.

The Success for All PowerTeaching scale-up evaluation examines the PowertTeaching implementation and how it impacts five school districts over a two-year period (the 2014-2015 school year through the 2015-2016 school year). It also considers the scale-up process itself - the methods employed and the extent to which the Success for All Foundation (SFAF), the organization that developed and provides technical assistance to schools operating the program, achieved its scale-up goals.

The ten data files included in this study contain a range of variable information gathered from student-level test scores, teacher and school principal surveys, school achievement snapshots, teacher logs, and scale-up initiative evaluations. Key variables include district IDs, teacher and principal IDs, baseline and outcome standardized test scores, structural and instructional processes, and records of teacher logs. Demographic variables for students include information on race, gender, special education, free/reduced lunch eligibility, ELL status, and age.

The National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten examined the pre-kindergarten programs of six states: California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and Georgia. For this study, pre-kindergarten (pre-k) included center-based programs for four-year-olds that are fully or partially funded by state education agencies and that are operated in schools or under the direction of state and local education agencies.

The study had two primary purposes:

1. To describe the variations of experiences for children in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs in school-related settings (public schools and state-funded pre-k classrooms in community-based settings), and

2. To examine the relationships between variations in pre-kindergarten/kindergarten experiences and children's outcomes in early elementary school.

The study addressed six primary groups of research questions:

1. What is the nature and distribution of education and experience of teachers and teacher assistants in pre-k public school programs?

2. What is the nature and distribution of global quality and specific practices in key areas such as literacy, math, and teacher-child relationships in a diverse sample of pre-k public school programs for four-year-olds as well as in a similarly diverse sample of kindergarten classes?

3. How do quality and practices vary as a result of child and teacher characteristics (e.g., child gender, race, home language, family income, and teacher's years of education) and classroom, program, community, and state structural variables (e.g., teacher-child ratio, funding base of the program, teacher salary, and degree of state regulation) for children with different demographic characteristics (e.g., race, gender, home language, and family income)?

4. Do quality and practice vary in relation to combinations of these variables? For example, are quality and practice a function of family poverty and teacher pay or education?

5. Can children's outcomes at the end of their pre-kindergarten year be predicted by the children's experiences in pre-k programs? Are the various dimensions of quality and/or practice differentially related to outcomes? Are these relationships constant across a population of children with different characteristics (e.g., race, gender, home language, and family income)?

6. Do pre-kindergarten program quality and practices predict children's transitions to kindergarten and children's skills at the end of the kindergarten year? Are these transitions moderated by children's characteristics, like race, gender, and family income?

The six states in the study were selected based on the significant amount of resources they have committed to pre-k initiatives. States were also selected to maximize the diversity in geography, program settings (public school or community), program intensity (full day versus part day), and educational requirements for teachers. Within each state, a random sample of 40 centers/schools was selected. One classroom in each center/school was selected at random for observation, and four children in each classroom were selected for individual assessment. The children were followed from the beginning of pre-k through the end of kindergarten. In five of the six states, families were also visited in their homes.

1. Classroom Services and Specific Instructional Practices

   Within the 40 classrooms in each participating state, carefully trained data collectors conducted classroom observations twice each year, while additional surveys were used to gather information from administrators/principals, teachers, and parents. Data were gathered on program services, (e.g., healthcare, meals, and transportation), program curriculum, teacher training and education, teachers' opinions of child development, and their instructional practices on subjects such as language, literacy, mathematics concepts, and social-emotional competencies. Data were also collected as to what types of steps were taken to aid children in their transitions from pre-k to kindergarten.

2. Children

   Within each participating pre-k classroom, four randomly selected children were assessed using a battery of individual instruments to measure language, literacy, mathematics, and related concept development, as well as social competence. A panel of expert reviewers aided the researchers in selecting a variety of standardized and nonstandardized assessments. The pre-k child assessments were conducted in the fall and spring of 2001-2002. The same children were followed into kindergarten and assessed in the fall and spring of 2002-2003 to examine whether specific practices employed by pre-k teachers made a difference in their transitions to kindergarten.

3. Families

   In individual home-based interviews, information on socio-economic, socio-cultural, and familial contexts were obtained through open-ended questions, structured ratings, and videotaped parent-child interactions. Specifically, parents were asked about (1) family life as it relates to socio-economic status and socio-cultural environment, (2) family educational practices and beliefs about the comparative roles of school and family in educating children, (3) the nature and quality of the home-school relationship, and (4) their own ratings of their children's psychological development and social competence.

Demographic information collected includes race, gender, family income, and mother's education level.

The above information pertains to the Main Child Level Public-Use Version and the Main Child Level Restricted-Use Version. From these main datasets, subsets were created at the classroom level for Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K Classroom Level Public-Use Version and Pre-K Classroom Level Restricted-Use Version) and for Kindergarten (Kindergarten Classroom Level Public-Use Version and Kindergarten Classroom Level Restricted-Use Version).

An Analysis of the Effects of an Academic Summer Program for Middle School Students, 2012, funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's Social Innovation Fund, was conducted in the Summer of 2012 in three school districts (District A, B, C) that were new partnerships for the Building Educated Leaders for Life program (BELL). Of the three study districts, District A and B offered the BELL program in one middle school each; District C offered the program in three schools.

Several types of quantitative data were collected about students and BELL teachers in the study. The nature and purpose of these data sources are described below.

(1) Spring (baseline) characteristics and test scores:During the application process, parents provided information about their child's socioeconomic characteristics (racial or ethnic group, parents' education, and so on. In addition, schools provided information about whether students in the study were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, whether they had an individualized education plan (IEP), and whether English was their second language. Schools also provided students' scores on the spring 2012 math and reading assessments administered by their state; these scores were used to determine whether students were proficient, based on local cutoff scores on their state test.

(2) Attendance records: BELL provided the evaluation team with the attendance records of students in the study during summer 2012, including any students in the non-BELL group who may have attended the program.

(3) Fall reading and math tests: Students in the study were encouraged to take standardized tests in math and reading in fall 2012. In the average study district, students took the tests six weeks after the end of the program, or one week after the start of the school year. Students' reading achievement was assessed using the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Examination (GRADE), and their math achievement was assessed with its math counterpart, the Group Mathematics Assessment and Diagnostic Examination (GMADE). The GRADE contains two subtests (reading comprehension and vocabulary), and the GMADE contains three (concepts, operations, and processes).

(4) Fall student survey: In the same session as the GRADE and GMADE were administered, students also completed a short survey asking about the extent to which they were engaged in various aspects of instruction when they returned to school in the fall (for example, whether they paid attention in class and whether they completed their homework on time). The survey also included a set of items asking students to describe their activities during the summer.

(5) BELL teacher survey: BELL administers a survey to its teachers as part of regular program monitoring and evaluation activities. The survey captures teachers' characteristics as well as their perceptions of various aspects of the BELL program (such as training, materials, and staffing), of their own performance in the classroom, and of their students' performance and engagement. BELL administers the survey to all of its teachers -- academic (English Language Arts [ELA] or math or both) and enrichment teachers -- as well as mentors (teaching assistants). However, given the academic focus of this evaluation, the target population for the study's purposes was academic teachers who taught students in the study.

This collection contains two datasets. Part 1 is a student-level dataset that includes all information collected about students in the study sample (baseline data, GRADE and GMADE test scores, student survey data, and attendance data). Part 2 is a teacher survey dataset that includes teachers in the analysis sample (i.e. academic middle school teachers who responded to the survey and who taught students in the study).

Demographic information about the students include socioeconomic characteristics like racial or ethnic group, parents' education, and so on. Demographic information about the teachers in the sample include their education and experience backgrounds.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what students in elementary and secondary schools in the United States know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, United States history, and beginning in 2014, in Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL). Since NAEP assessments are administered uniformly using the same sets of test booklets across the United States, NAEP results serve as a common metric for all states and selected urban districts. The assessment stays essentially the same from year to year, with only carefully documented changes. This permits NAEP to provide a clear picture of student academic progress over time and for teachers, principals, parents, policymakers, and researchers to use NAEP results to assess progress and develop ways to improve education in the United States. For more information, please read An Introduction to NAEP.

There are two types of assessments: main NAEP and long-term trend NAEP. Main NAEP is administered to fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-graders across the United States in a variety of subjects. The Main NAEP is conducted between the last week of January and the first week in March every year. National results are available for all assessments and subjects. Results for states and select urban districts are available in some subjects for grades 4 and 8. The Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) is a special project developed to determine the feasibility of reporting district-level NAEP results for large urban districts. In 2009 a trial state assessment was administered at grade 12. Long-term trend NAEP is administered nationally every four years. During the same academic year, 13-year-olds are assessed in the fall, 9-year-olds in the winter, and 17-year-olds in the spring. Long-term trend assessments measure student performance in mathematics and reading, and allow the performance of students from recent time periods to be compared with students since the early 1970s.

For example, the 1997 and 2008 NAEP arts assessments were part of the Main NAEP Assessments. The NAEP 1997 Arts Assessment was conducted nationally at grade 8. For music and visual arts, representative samples of public and nonpublic school students were assessed. A special "targeted" sample of students took the theatre assessment. Schools offering at least 44 classroom hours of a theatre course per semester, and offering courses including more than the history or literature of theatre, were identified. Students attending those schools who had accumulated 30 hours of theatre classes by the end of the 1996-97 school year were selected to take the theatre assessment. The NAEP 2008 Arts Assessment was administered to a nationally representative sample of 7,900 eighth-grade public and private school students. Approximately one-half of these students were assessed in music, and the other half were assessed in visual arts. The music portion of the assessment measured students' ability to respond to music in various ways. Students were asked to analyze and describe aspects of music they heard, critique instrumental and vocal performances, and demonstrate their knowledge of standard musical notation and music's role in society. The visual arts portion of the assessment included questions that measured students' ability to respond to art as well as questions that measured their ability to create art. Responding questions asked students to analyze and describe works of art and design. For example, students were asked to describe specific differences in how certain parts of an artist's self-portrait were drawn. Creating questions required students to create works of art and design of their own. For example, students were asked to create a self-portrait that was scored for identifying detail, compositional elements, and use of materials.

Most recently, in 2016, a total of 8,800 eighth-graders in the nation's public and private schools responded to and critiqued existing works of music and visual art and created their own original artwork. NCES collected and analyzed the data and released the 2016 report highlighting key findings. Average music and visual arts responding scores are reported separately on a scale of 0 to 300 points. Average creating scores for visual arts are reported on a scale of 0 to 100 percent. Results are also reported by student groups, school type, and region, as well as in comparison to the 2008 assessment.

In addition, NAEP has a number of special studies that are conducted periodically. These include research and development efforts such as the High School Transcript Study and the National Indian Education Study. More information on these special studies is available on the NAEP Web site.

The Chicago Longitudinal Study investigates the educational and social development of a same-age cohort of 1,539 low-income, minority children (93 percent African American) who grew up in high-poverty neighborhoods in central-city Chicago and attended government-funded kindergarten programs in the Chicago Public Schools in 1985-1986. Children were at risk of poor outcomes because they face social-environmental disadvantages including neighborhood poverty, family low-income status, and other economic and educational hardships.

Study Goals

The CLS is guided by four major goals:

1. To document patterns of school performance and social competence throughout the school-age years, including their school achievement and attitudes, academic progress, and psychosocial development.
2. To evaluate the effects of the Child-Parent Center and Expansion Program on child and youth development. Children and families had the opportunity to participate in this unique Head Start type early childhood intervention from ages three to nine (preschool to third grade).
3. To identify and better understand the educational and psychosocial pathways through which the effects of early childhood experiences are manifested, and more generally, through which scholastic and behavioral development proceeds.
4. To investigate the contributions to children's educational and social development of a variety of personal, family, school, and community factors, especially those that can be altered by program or policy interventions to prevent learning difficulties and promote positive outcomes.

Studies addressing the first two goals have been reported extensively. Participation in the Child-Parent Center Program for different lengths of time, for example, has been found to be significantly associated with higher levels of school achievement into adolescence, with higher levels of consumer skills, with enhanced parent involvement in children's education, and with lower rates of grade retention and special education, lower rates of early school dropout, and with lower rates of delinquent behavior (Reynolds, 1994, 1995, 2000; Reynolds and Temple, 1995, 1998; Temple, Reynolds, and Miedel, in press). Children's patterns of school and social adjustment over time (Reynolds and Bezruczko, 1993; Reynolds and Gill, 1994; Reynolds, 2000) as well as several methodological contributions (Reynolds and Temple, 1995; Reynolds, 1998a, 1998b) also have been reported elsewhere. Examples of studies addressing goals three and four are reported in a special issue of the Journal of School Psychology (Reynolds, 1999).

The Chicago Longitudinal Study is particularly appropriate for addressing these and other goals for two reasons. First, the CLS is one of the most extensive and comprehensive studies undertaken of a low-income, urban sample. Data were collected beginning during children's preschool years and have continued on a yearly basis throughout the school-age years. Multiple sources of data have been utilized in this on-going study, including teacher surveys, child surveys and interviews, parent surveys and interviews, school administrative records, standardized tests, and classroom observations. Thus, the impact of a variety of individual, family, and school-related factors can be investigated.

A second unique feature of the CLS is that although the project concerns child development, an emphasis is given to factors and experiences that are alterable by program or policy intervention both within and outside of schools. Besides information on early childhood intervention, information has been collected on classroom adjustment, parent involvement and parenting practices, grade retention and special education placement, school mobility, educational expectations of children, teachers, and parents, and on the school learning environment.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, Kindergarten-Eighth Grade Full Sample includes the kindergarten, first, third, fifth, and eighth grade data collections for the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K). Unlike the public-use longitudinal files released in previous rounds, this file contains all data for all ECLS-K sample cases that have been publicly released in any of the rounds. Thus, it can be used for within-year (cross-sectional) analyses of any round of data collection and cross-year (longitudinal) analyses of combinations of rounds. It focuses on children's early school experiences beginning with kindergarten through eighth grade. It is a nationally representative sample that collects information from children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, their early learning and early performance in school, as well as their home environment, home educational practices, school environment, classroom environment, classroom curriculum, and teacher qualifications. The list below summarizes each wave of this study.

• 1998-1999 (the Kindergarten year-Rounds 1 and 2): The ECLS-K child assessments, parent interviews, and teacher questionnaires were conducted in the fall. Children, parents, and teachers participated again in the spring, along with school administrators.

• 1999-2000 (the First grade year-Rounds 3 and 4): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews for a 30 percent sub-sample in the fall. The full sample of children, parents, teachers, and school administrators participated in the spring.

• 2002 (the Third grade year-Round 5): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews in the spring. Teachers and school administrators completed questionnaires.

• 2004 (the Fifth grade year-Round 6): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews in the spring. Teachers and school administrators completed questionnaires.

• 2007 (the Eighth grade year-Round 7): The ECLS-K followed the children into middle school. Information was collected from the children, their parents, teachers, and school administrators.

For more detailed information about this data collection, please refer to the user guide.

The National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) combined the data of two major studies in order to understand variations among state-funded pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs and in turn, how these variations relate to child outcomes at the end of pre-k and in kindergarten. The Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten and the State-Wide Early Education Programs (SWEEP) Study provide detailed information on pre-kindergarten teachers, children, and classrooms in 11 states. By combining data from both studies, information is available from 721 classrooms and 2,982 pre-kindergarten children in these 11 states.

Pre-kindergarten data collection for the Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten took place during the 2001-2002 school year in six states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, and Ohio. These states were selected from among states that had committed significant resources to pre-k initiatives. States were selected to maximize diversity with regard to geography, program settings (public school or community setting), program intensity (full-day vs. part-day), and educational requirements for teachers. In each state, a stratified random sample of 40 centers/schools was selected from the list of all the school/centers or programs (both contractors and subcontractors) provided to the researchers by each state's department of education.

In total, 238 sites participated in the fall and two additional sites joined the study in the spring. Participating teachers helped the data collectors recruit children into the study by sending recruitment packets home with all children enrolled in the classroom. On the first day of data collection, the data collectors determined which of the children were eligible to participate. Eligible children were those who (1) would be old enough for kindergarten in the fall of 2002, (2) did not have an Individualized Education Plan, according to the teacher, and (3) spoke English or Spanish well enough to understand simple instructions, according to the teacher.

Pre-kindergarten data collection for the SWEEP Study took place during the 2003-2004 school year in five states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. These states were selected to complement the states already in the Multi-State Study of Pre-K by including programs with significantly different funding models or modes of service delivery. In each of the five states, 100 randomly selected state-funded pre-kindergarten sites were recruited for participation in the study from a list of all sites provided by the state.

In total, 465 sites participated in the fall. Two sites declined to continue participation in the spring, resulting in 463 sites participating in the spring. Participating teachers helped the data collectors recruit children into the study by sending recruitment packets home with all children enrolled in the classroom. On the first day of data collection, the data collectors determined which of the children were eligible to participate. Eligible children were those who (1) would be old enough for kindergarten in the fall of 2004, (2) did not have an Individualized Education Plan, according to the teacher, and (3) spoke English or Spanish well enough to understand simple instructions, according to the teacher.

Demographic information collected across both studies includes race, teacher gender, child gender, family income, mother's education level, and teacher education level.

The researchers also created a variable for both the child-level data and the class-level data which allows secondary users to subset cases according to either the Multi-State or SWEEP study.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) focuses on children's early school experiences beginning with kindergarten through fifth grade. It is a nationally representative sample that collects information from children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, their early learning and early performance in school, as well as their home environment, home educational practices, school environment, classroom environment, classroom curriculum, and teacher qualifications.

With a few exceptions, the fifth grade data file contains all data collected from parents, children, teachers, or schools in the base year (fall and spring), first grade (fall and spring), third grade (spring), and fifth grade (spring) data collections. To streamline the file, however, the data from the household rosters that listed all household members, their relationship to the sampled child, and selected other characteristics are not included in the file. The composite variables describing critical household roster-based information, such as the children's family structure and selected characteristics of the family members, have been retained on the file.

Specific subjects covered by the variables in this data file include parent/child gender, parent/child race, family background, socioeconomic status, household income, parents' education level, and parents' employment and marital status. Other variables include type of childcare and childcare arrangements, the child's math, science, and reading scores, the child's learning problems and autism, as well as the child's diet issues, food security, and school food service. Variables about teachers include age, race, background, qualifications, job satisfaction, their level of impact on curriculum and policy, and time spent on classroom activities and specific subjects. Other variables include diversity of classroom students, parent-teacher discussions, family participation in school events and fundraising, whether the child's school has bars on the windows and doors, fire alarms, sprinklers, and fire extinguishers, the presence of school graffiti, as well as bus/transportation issues.

This study spans several years of data collection by the Learning Mathematics for Teaching (LMT) project. This project's main purpose was to develop a suite of instruments measuring K-8 teachers' Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT). These instruments are typically used to evaluate content-focused mathematics professional development. Over the years, this project piloted these measures in several contexts to establish psychometric properties of the instruments:

• With a nationally representative sample of middle school mathematics teachers in 2005 and again in 2006. The same sample was surveyed at both time points.
• With a nationally representative sample of elementary school teachers in 2008.
• With smaller samples of grade 4-8 teachers on specific mathematical topics (e.g., a form on rational number, a form on proportional reasoning).

The specific research questions varied with the sample. For the later pilots, we were interested in the psychometric properties of the measures and teacher scores' relationship to other teacher characteristics, such as their mathematical background and years of experience.

The International Curriculum Analysis (ICA) study provided curricular and textbook information from each country participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). TIMSS was a comparative study of education in mathematics and the sciences conducted in over 40 countries on five continents. The goal of TIMSS was to measure student achievement in mathematics and science in participating countries and to assess some of the curricular and classroom factors that are related to student learning in these subjects. The study was intended to provide educators and policy makers with an unparalleled and multidimensional perspective on mathematics and science curricula; their implementation; the nature of student performance in mathematics and science; and the social, economic, and educational context in which these occur.

Below is a description of each of the types of data files found in this study.

The Textbook Specific and Curriculum Guide Specific data files contain overall characteristic information, the number of pages, size of book, publisher, etc. pertaining to material used within a country for all countries involved in the study.

The General Topic Trace Mapping data files contain questionnaire responses for each specific science and mathematics topic for each grade.

The Document Description data file contains document ID, name, subject, publisher and publishing data for each document provided by each country in the study.

The Unit Level data files contain information describing a specific unit within a document, used for both textbooks and curriculum guides.

The Block Level data files contain specific curricular information about the blocks contained within each unit.

The Textbook Coverage data files contain summaries of context coverage for each country's textbooks and the performance expectation codes of those textbooks, both Mathematics and Science. The coverage rate for each content topic is expressed as the average percent that particular topic is mentioned in each of the country's textbooks.

The Textbook Characteristics data file contains derived variables from 400 textbooks used in 45 countries. The variables captures the frequency with which content material such as activities, exercise or question sets, instructional narratives and other instructional tools, as well as performance expectation related material are found within these textbooks.

The Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Qualitative Interviews, 2006, is a part of the RETA: Distributed Leadership for Middle School Mathematics Education: Content Area Leadership Expertise in Practice study. The goal of RETA was to design and validate a series of research instruments to identify leadership for mathematics instruction in middle schools and for documenting instructional leadership practice. Adopting a distributed perspective on leadership, this work focused on both formally designated and informal leaders and their leadership routines. The objective was to develop valid and reliable instruments that make the day-to-day practice of school leadership for mathematics instruction more transparent, as well as measure changes in this practice over time. This project utilized Social Network Surveys, Experience Sampling Methods (ESM), and Daily Practice Logs. To validate these instruments, a combination of shadowing, end of day cognitive interviews, and semi-structured interviews was used. These instruments were used to describe and analyze when and how teachers and other educators solicit or provide instructional advice and the degree to which these resources influence their work.

In order to validate the survey, qualitative interviews were conducted with a subset of teachers at 6 of these 22 schools in early Spring 2006. A purposeful sample of schools was selected to maximize variation so that the sample included two public schools (an elementary and a middle school), two Catholic schools, and two charter schools. The interviewees were selected based on an analysis of the SSSNQ data. Using a purposeful sampling strategy, the following were selected in each school: formal leaders (i.e., Principal, Assistant Principal, Math Specialist, Literacy Specialist), informal leaders (i.e., two teachers who were not formally designated leaders but had more people go to them for math advice relative to other people in their school), and followers (i.e., two to four teachers who were not formal or informal leaders). Interviews with 49 staff members focused mainly on their advice-seeking practices around mathematics instruction. Using a semi-structured protocol, researchers asked interviewees about their advice or knowledge seeking related to mathematics instruction and their views of leadership and change efforts underway at the school.

The Lincoln School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Longitudinal Study, 2007-2008 is a part of the RETA: Distributed Leadership for Middle School Mathematics Education: Content Area Leadership Expertise in Practice study. The goal of RETA was to design and validate a series of research instruments to identify leadership for mathematics instruction in middle schools and for documenting instructional leadership practice. Adopting a distributed perspective on leadership, this work focused on both formally designated and informal leaders and their leadership routines. The objective was to develop valid and reliable instruments that make the day-to-day practice of school leadership for mathematics instruction more transparent, as well as measure changes in this practice over time. This project utilized Social Network Surveys, Experience Sampling Methods (ESM), and Daily Practice Logs. To validate these instruments, a combination of shadowing, end of day cognitive interviews, and semi-structured interviews was used. These instruments were used to describe and analyze when and how teachers and other educators solicit or provide instructional advice and the degree to which these resources influence their work.

For the Lincoln longitudinal study, there was a partnership with the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, as part of the Math in the Middle MSP. In 2007, the School Staff Social Network Survey (SSSNQ) was administered to all 10 middle schools in the Lincoln Public Schools District. In 2008, Math in the Middle was collaborated with to conduct the SSSNQ for a second administration in all 10 middle schools, which provided longitudinal data to analyze changes in formal and informal leadership for mathematics education in these schools. The SSSNQ was administered for the third time to the entire cohort of Math in the Middle Teaching Associates that have undergone training through the Math in the Middle MSP.

The Chicago School Staff Social Network Questionnaire Longitudinal Study, 2005-2008 is a part of the RETA Distributed Leadership for Middle School Mathematics Education: Content Area Leadership Expertise in Practice study. The goal of RETA was to design and validate a series of research instruments to identify leadership for mathematics instruction in middle schools and for documenting instructional leadership practice. Adopting a distributed perspective on leadership, this work focused on both formally designated and informal leaders and their leadership routines. The objective was to develop valid and reliable instruments that make the day-to-day practice of school leadership for mathematics instruction more transparent, as well as measure changes in this practice over time. This project utilized Social Network Surveys, Experience Sampling Methods (ESM), and Daily Practice Logs. To validate these instruments, a combination of shadowing, end of day cognitive interviews, and semi-structured interviews was used. These instruments were used to describe and analyze when and how teachers and other educators solicit or provide instructional advice and the degree to which these resources influence their work.

The first component of the Chicago longitudinal study involved the administration of the School Staff Social Network Questionnaire (SSSNQ) to staff in a purposeful sample of 22 schools starting in the Winter of 2005 and continuing through the Spring of 2006. A 23rd school responded, but was dropped from analysis due to a problem with the structure of the survey questions. All teachers and administrators at each school were asked to take the survey online. In January 2007 the Office of Mathematics and Science for Chicago Public Schools, with the support of the Chicago Community Trust, asked for the School Staff Social Network Questionnaire (SSSNQ) to be administered to 23 Chicago public schools (both K-8 and middle schools) as part of the work with these schools around distributed leadership for mathematics and language arts instruction. At the time of the study, all of these schools were participating in a leadership and school-restructuring initiative called the Cluster 4 Middle Grades Program. In May and June 2007, the survey was administered to 19 of the schools (the other four schools declined the invitation). In June of 2008, the SSSNQ was administered again, but this time it was only given to the 12 schools that had a response rate over 70 percent in 2007.