Project

Advancing Insights about the Condition of K-12 Education Through the National Teacher and Principal Survey

The National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) is the U.S. Department of Education’s primary source of information on K–12 public and private schools from the perspectives of teachers and administrators.

The program—a redesign of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), also conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and supported by AIR—is a system of interrelated surveys that gather data directly from educators, offering insights into topics such as teacher and principal demographics, working conditions, school programs, and staffing challenges. NCES follows up with respondents to better understand teacher and principal attrition and mobility.

How AIR Supported the NTPS

From 2022 to 2025, AIR supported NCES with planning, review, and publication tasks to ensure the collection and production of high-quality, timely data on the characteristics and experiences of K–12 educators.

Highlights of AIR’s work in these areas are described below.

Strategic Planning to Ensure Success

Using a new oversampling approach to include more first-year teachers. For the 2023–24 NTPS, AIR introduced a new oversampling method to ensure more first-year teachers were included in the survey. This made it easier to study these teachers and simplified participant selection.
Streamlining NTPS questionnaires with a rigorous evaluation framework. To reduce burden on educators, AIR created a framework to merge the School and Principal Questionnaires into a single shorter questionnaire. We scored the survey items and recommended whether each item should be kept on the new questionnaire, replaced with administrative data, or moved to another data collection.

Maximizing the Quality of the Collected Data

Ensuring accuracy and usability through web survey testing. AIR tested web survey instruments to ensure they were user friendly, functioned properly, and accurately collected the intended information.
Reviewing data specifications for accuracy and compliance. We reviewed more than 50 data collection and data processing specifications (e.g., data capture, imputation, weighting) to make sure they were complete, accurate, followed client standards, and included steps to manage risks.

Publishing Data and Analyses to Inform Education Policy and Practice

This AIR-authored report highlights a rise in K–12 public school teachers with provisional or no certification, underscoring the need for strong support and certification pathways in areas facing teacher shortages.

Ensuring quality of data processing across cycles. AIR reviewed draft data files to ensure they were complete, accurately processed, and comparable with previous survey cycles and external benchmarks.
Communicating key NTPS insights. AIR developed several NCES briefs to help policymakers, educators, and the public easily understand important trends and insights related to the NTPS findings.