The federal government, which requires all states to collect this information, has developed a set of new reporting standards in order to provide a more accurate picture of the nation’s ethnic and racial diversity. These new standards enable individuals to be identified in more than one racial or ethnic category. In the past, data collections allowed individuals to be identified in only one racial or ethnic category.

Beginning this fall, RIDE will ask all districts to start reporting to us their race and ethnicity data using both the current race and ethnicity data categories (in which individuals are identified by only one racial or ethnic category) and the new federal standards (in which individuals may be identified by more than one category). By the 2010-11 school year, all districts will be required to report the data using the new federal standards only.

RIDE and ED will use the data with the new racial and ethnic categories just as we currently use race and ethnicity data. For example, we disaggregate by student race and ethnicity the test results that we report to ED and to the public at large. We will continue to do so, but we will use the new race and ethnicity data categories for these disaggregations.

Online Resources on Collecting and Reporting Race and Ethnicity Data

• Commissioner’s letter to superintendents
• USDE guidance on policy questions
• State guidance on implementation
• State Implementation Meeting PPT – 2/5/2009
• The Dear Colleague letter from Assistant Secretary Bill Evers is at: http://www.ed.gov/policy/rschstat/guid/raceethnicity/letter.html
• Answers to related policy questions is at: http://www.ed.gov/policy/rschstat/guid/raceethnicity/questions.html
• A summary that allows you to access these (and other) related documents is: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd
• You can also get to them through the following links
  • http://www.ed.gov/policy/rschstat/guid/raceethnicity/index.html
  • http://www.ed.gov/policy/landing.jhtml
  • http://www.ed.gov/policy/rschstat/guid/edpicks.jhtml
• The Forum Guide to Race/Ethnicity Data Implementation is now available online at: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008802