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In assessing quality of life, the most important goal is to develop a strategy that produces useable and useful information for decision making. Assessment design is complex, and whether an assessment is developed from scratch, or 1 or more portions of existing instruments are adapted, the focus must be on the quality of the theoretical and operational elements of the particular line of inquiry and its environment. The necessary and most often discussed focus on the theoretical dimensions of validity, reliability and responsiveness is not sufficient to insure that the data are of the requisite high quality. There is also a need, almost universally given little attention in the literature, to look at operational aspects, such as design, format, flow, appearance, and response-stimulus, of each assessment instrument. Searching for guidance in the quality-of-life (QOL) literature remains a challenge even with computers, modems, keywords, static guidebooks and bibliographic systems. The On-Line Guide to Quality-of-Life Assessments (OLGA) is presented as a personal computer-based system that is updated 3 times a year to provide QOL researchers and assessment developers with 2 databases: assessments providing full descriptions and contact information; and references providing fully keyed citations to the assessment use literature. These databases are made more useful by decision-logical programs that identify relevant assessments and supporting research literature. OLGA can thus save time and other resources by helping investigators concentrate on the most relevant elements of the existing literature. This focus will assist them in avoiding the problems of ending up with the right answers to the wrong questions.

Many authors called for a return to the 1867 founding challenge of providing quality statespecific data which are timely and comparable. Suggested were guidance and support, technical and fiscal, to develop model state acquisition systems and data bases, and also a central education data library/archive. Even stronger were the calls for a true National Center with coordinative and oversight responsibility, and authority, over the total domain of data acquisition by the Federal government from the education sector of the nation. Subject suggestions included longitudinal studies of the transition points within the K-12 grade span, and data on the full education process, not just schooling.

During 1985 the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, began a thorough review of its elementary and secondary education data collection programs. Emerson J. Elliott, Administrator of NCES, initiated the review to address questions of the suitability, scope, reliability, and timeliness of the Center’s statistical data in terms of the purposes those data are expected to serve-purposes relative to instructional and administrative needs, and to education policy issues. The intended product of the effort was the design of a new plan for national data collections from institutions and individuals to be implemented over a several year period. The Redesign Project was conceptually designed by Leslie J. Silverman, Project Director and Richard C. Taeuber, Project Co-Director as a dialogue to identify the data needs of the public and the education community at all levels of participation and governance. It was designed to be an open, public, continuing process to elicit and discuss ideas for the nature and the content of the national education data system. It was specifically not to be a voting or tabulation of preferences. The Redesign Project was designed to have five stages: Stage I: Solicit papers from data users and policy and programmatic organizations to provide the initial material for the ongoing dialogue. Stage II: Prepare a synthesis of the received papers to provide a succinct, organized reflection of the ideas, suggestions, and comments in the invited papers. Stage ZZZ. Prepare a conceptual plan(s) for a national data collection program to respond to a maximal subset of the suggestions for new and improved data. Together with the synthesis, this report would provide the basis for focusing the continuing discussion of data needs and system improvements. Stage IV: Coordinate a period of public comment featuring a nationwide series of discussions and/or regionai legislative-type hearings so that education practitioner and consumers of education data could assess how well the concerns of data users and providers had been addressed in the Synthesis and Alternatives Reports. Most importantly, this broadbased public dialogue would serve to foster a sense of participation within the education community, as well as the building of a constituency for the change fostered by the redesign of the national data system. Stage V: Design a specific operational national elementary and secondary education data collection program. The planning would be by NCES and Departmental staff, in cooperation with the States, as dominant participants. This new system would improve the delivery of needed information about public and private schools, teachers, and students to the public, policymakers, and the education community. Specific data items would, only at this final stage, be jointly identified by NCES staff and representatives of the constituencies the system would be designed to serve.

Basic data are those items collected for NCES by the States from the Local Education Agencies based on their administrative records. Extensive criticism and suggestion are offered for both categories of data: the universe descriptor data on timeliness and comparability grounds; the finance data as being too skeletal in nature, even to the point of challenging their collection for having so little informational content. The two fundamental concerns are (a) quality: continued inaccuracies in State and thus national data overwhelm all other concerns; and (b) comparability of State data to enable educators and the public to monitor educational achievements against a standard.

"Population counts for small areas, as in a census, are directly affected by the rules that determine where each person is to be counted. Clear rules are needed for groups such as migratory workers, persons whose work requires long absences from the family home, homeless persons, military personnel, persons maintaining two or more homes, persons in hospitals, correctional, or other institutions, crews of sea-going vessels, and others. The rules may have a bearing on family and household statistics and statistics on socioeconomic status as well as on counts of numbers of people."