February 24, 1999

The Honorable William M. Daley
Secretary of Commerce
Washington, DC 20230

Dear Mr. Secretary:

On behalf of the Census Bureau, I am pleased to forward the initial evaluations from the 1998 Dress Rehearsal of Census 2000 operations, prepared by the Bureau's Directorate for Methodology and Standards. In keeping with the long tradition of the Census Bureau, we are publically issuing our "report card" and a response from the Decennial Management Division that addresses the issues raised. As expected, the Dress Rehearsal identifies operations that will need to be improved for Census 2000; that work is of course underway.

The Dress Rehearsal results demonstrate that the census will produce an undercount and that the magnitude of the undercount will differ by racial groups. For your reference, I enclose a recent press announcement that documents the undercount rates for the Dress Rehearsal sites. The Dress Rehearsal provided an opportunity to test whether the application of modern statistical methods would reduce the undercount and improve the accuracy of the census. The Dress Rehearsal confirms this to be the case, and the Census Bureau has determined that it is feasible to incorporate these statistical methods into the Census 2000 design for purposes other than producing the apportionment counts.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Prewitt
Director

Evaluation Results Available Soon