Projects

North Carolina Education Research Data Center (NCERDC)

This ongoing project was established in 2000 through a partnership with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to store and manage data on the state's public schools, students and teachers. The data, which includes information dating back to the mid-1990s, is available to university researchers, nonprofit research institutions and government agencies. The North Carolina Education Research Data Center is a unique portal to an immense store of data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and other agencies, such as the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

The Data Center provides researchers and the broader policy community with ready access to the data that they need for policy-oriented research. Research topics have included the minority achievement gap, the shortage of qualified teachers, school accountability and choice, the academic performance of at-risk children, and problem behavior in schools.

Without the Data Center, many of these studies could not be undertaken. The Data Center provides researchers across social science disciplines with access to large databases, helps them learn from and build on each others' work, connects them with state and local policy makers, and provides a rich intellectual environment for the training of a new generation of education researchers for the state and region.

The Data Center conducts its activities in strict compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).