Selected Statistics From the Public Elementary and Secondary Education Universe: School Year 2012–13

The public elementary and secondary universe data used in this report are from the nonfiscal components of the Common Core of Data (CCD). The CCD is the primary NCES database on public elementary and secondary education in the United States. There are three nonfiscal components of CCD: the Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey; the Local Education Agency (LEA) Universe Survey; and the State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary/Secondary Education. State education agencies (SEAs) report these data through the U.S. Department of Education’s EDFacts Submission System. The universe of public elementary and secondary education is composed of a complete directory listing of all public schools and LEAs for each state or jurisdiction that includes the name, address, geographical location information, and descriptive characteristics for each school and LEA (e.g., operational status, type, charter status). The universe also includes aggregate counts of students in membership for each state, LEA, and school by grade and student demographic characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, sex) and aggregate counts of teachers and other staff in key occupational categories that are commonly found in schools. In this First Look, provisional data from the SY 2012–13 public elementary and secondary education universe have been fully reviewed and edited.4 The purpose of a First Look report is to introduce new data through the presentation of tables containing descriptive information; therefore, the tables and selected findings chosen for this report are meant to illustrate some of the typical types of information available from the public elementary secondary universe files. The tables chosen include tabulations from only some of the available data items. The findings do not represent a complete review of all observed differences in the data and are not meant to emphasize any particular issue. The calculated totals in this report, identified as “United States” totals in tabulations and “national” estimates in text, include data for only the 50 states and the District of Columbia and exclude data for other jurisdictions.