The Feasibility of Collecting School Pension Data: An Evaluation of Data from the Pilot School Pension Survey (SPS) School Year 2016-17 (FY 17). Research and Development Report. NCES 2022-307

In 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) began exploratory data collection for the School Pension Survey (SPS). The SPS is a new data collection of elementary/secondary school teacher pension data collected at the school district level. The SPS was developed primarily in response to public demand for data on teacher and other school district employee pension costs--costs that are largely not included in education spending data released by NCES through its annual National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) and School District Finance Survey (F-33) collections. The pilot SPS, collected for fiscal year (FY) 2017 (school year 2016-17), was designed to assess whether the SPS is a viable, efficient method of collecting school pension data. This report provides comprehensive detail on the pilot collection--including survey background, data collection methodology, availability of SPS data, analysis of data collected, data editing procedures, assessments of data quality, and factors supporting and limiting the collection of pension data through the SPS. Key observations and findings from this report include the following: (1) Within the states selected for the SPS, comprehensive pension data were able to be collected for a high percentage of school districts; (2) There are notable limitations to collecting pension data though the SPS; and (3) The SPS represents a significant step toward achieving more complete reporting of school spending.