NAEP Assessment Sample Design → NAEP 2009 Sample Design → Sample Design for the 2009 National Assessment → 2009 Private School National Assessment → Sampling Frame for the 2009 Private School National Assessment

NAEP Technical DocumentationSampling Frame for the 2009 Private School National Assessment

			Fourth-, Eighth-, and Twelfth-Grade Schools and Enrollment in the Private School Sampling Frame New-School Sampling Frame for the Private School Assessment

The frame of the private schools in all three grades was developed from the 2005-2006 Private School Universe Survey (PSS), a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The PSS is a biennial mail survey of all private schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The PSS frame of schools comprises both a list frame and an area frame. The 2005-2006 list frame is an assembly of the 2003-2004 PSS frame and more up-to-date lists from state education agencies, private school associations, and other easily accessible sources. To improve the coverage of the PSS list frame, the Census Bureau also conducted a survey to locate private schools in a random sample of geographic areas throughout the United States. The areas were single counties or groups of counties sampled from an area frame constructed from all counties in the nation. Within each selected area a complete list of private schools was gathered using information from the Yellow Pages, religious institutions, local education agencies, chambers of commerce, and local government offices. Schools not already on the list frame were identified and added to the frame of private schools. A weighting component was computed by the Census Bureau so that the additional area-frame schools would represent all schools absent from the list frame, not just those in the selected areas.

The sampling frame excluded schools that were ungraded, provided only special education, were part of hospital or treatment center programs, were juvenile correctional institutions, were home-school entities, or were for adult education.

For quality control purposes, school and student counts from the 2009 sampling frame were compared to school and student counts from previous NAEP frames (2006 and 2007). No major issues were found.

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