Public Comment on the Civil Rights Data Collection

Mr. Ross Santy, Chief Data Officer
Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Ave. SW
Washington, DC 20202-8240

RE: Docket No.: ED-2024-SCC-0128

New America is an independent, nonprofit policy and research organization; our the Birth through 12th Grade team, as a part of the Education Policy Program, focuses on strengthening and improving public educational systems to better ensure all students have equitable access to high quality learning opportunities.

The Civil Rights Data Collection is a national biennial survey that has been tracking civil rights issues in our nation’s public schools since 1968. The CRDC is vitally important because it provides a picture of what civil rights enforcement looks like in public schools and which students are receiving the support and protection that enables them to gain a high-quality education. In addition, the Every Student Succeeds Act requires the use of CRDC data to inform states’ annual report cards.

Schools and districts have been responding to the CRDC survey since its creation but a significant challenge to their preparedness to provide data to the U.S. Department of Education (ED) now is the sudden loss of federal funding causing layoffs in schools and districts. We are also concerned about the future of the CRDC, as staff at ED have been reduced to such a level that it may be difficult to process the data coming in. The Department of Education itself has never faced such self imposed challenges. However, part of the responsibility of the Department is to uphold and enforce civil rights protections in public schools, a job that was the primary focus of the Office for Civil Rights. Many Americans rely on that data for accountability and transparency including parents, community members, and policymakers. Despite the Secretary’s intention to close the Department and the Administration’s budget request that starves it of both staff and funding, the Department of Education still has a Congressional mandate to fill and a responsibility to provide services to public school students in America.

The Department has proposed the removal of gender identity from its definitions of bullying, rape and sexual assault in an attempt to align with the President’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” According to 2023 data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), nearly 3.3 percent of U.S. high school students identified as transgender, and 2.2 percent identified as questioning. The CDC found that transgender and nonbinary students experience higher rates of bullying and sexual harassment, as well as higher rates of depression and suicide, than other students. Despite the Administration’s position on gender, nonbinary and transgender students have always existed and they will continue to exist. The Department’s proposed change to data collection points would only mean these students will go without the supports

they need to be successful. We recommend that the Department reconsider this change, and continue to gather data on transgender and nonbinary students, as well as the instances where gender identity intersects with harassment and bullying.

Threat assessment systems purport to be less exclusionary and more focused on prevention, but data from a study funded by the Department of Justice shows that students with disabilities and racial minorities are often referred to the threat assessment team at higher rates than their peers. That study also showed that threat assessment systems fall prey to the same issues of subjectiveness and bias as other school discipline and safety strategies. Also of concern is the role of school resource officers, who are often a part of the threat assessment team, as their mere presence means increased interaction with law enforcement, which is a highly stressful and traumatizing experience for children. We applaud the Department’s effort to collect more data on threat assessment systems and their implications for students, but without more details about who sits on the threat assessment team, what training they have received, and whether or not that training includes the needs of their specific communities, the Department is not getting the full picture of threat assessment efforts. We recommend that in addition to the additional data points that are being collected, that the Department consider a separate, in-depth and specific study on threat assessment systems, their use, and their implications for vulnerable communities.

We support the Department’s proposal to add an indicator for informal removals from the classroom. Removal from the classroom for any purpose related to discipline is disruptive to a student's learning, and sometimes for their peers. By documenting these removals and disaggregating the data by race, language, and disability status, the Department will provide a clearer picture of time spent managing behaviors and how much learning time is lost as a result.

Technology is essential to how we live and communicate in the world and it plays a critical role for data collection and reporting. Data collection efforts, including through the use of AI, must embed human oversight and transparency throughout design, deployment, and evaluation in order for the data gathered to be representative, and reflective of contexts and lived experiences. Simultaneously, as data collection expands, the need for privacy-preserving solutions in government data systems becomes equally important. We recommend that data collection efforts explore key privacy-enhancing technology methodologies such as encryption, anonymization, and differential privacy. Data collection practices should follow principles of data minimization, prioritize security, and limit the use of data sharing—particularly when data is used for purposes like training generative AI systems, without explicit and informed consent from parents and students.

For questions please contact Jazmyne Owens, Senior Policy Advisor, PreK-12 (owens@newamerica.org).