The Hawkins-Stafford Education Improvement Amendments of 1988 established the National Cooperative Education Statistics System and directed the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics to support the development and implementation of standards for education data collection, processing, analysis, and reporting. The Cooperative Education Data Collection and Reporting Standards Project was initiated and a task force was formed to plan, produce, review, and disseminate the standards, which are concerned with processes, rather than results. This document was developed to help improve the usefulness and timeliness of education data, but it does not describe the types of data that should be collected. Standards for Education Data Collection and Reporting (SEDCAR) are developed and organized into the following phases of management of data collection and reporting, design, data collection, data preparation and processing, data analysis, and reporting and dissemination of data. Each standard has at least four components: (1) identification of the phase the standard falls under; (2) the subject (topic) of the standard; (3) a statement of purpose; and (4) guidelines to best practice. Some of the SEDCARs contain related standards information and checklists of procedural steps. Thirty-eight SEDCARs are outlined. Two appendices provide information about related standards, and an index and glossary are included. A 14-item list of references is included. (SLD)