New source of school district data

I will also add this to the Statistics tab of the Education research guide, although at this point, no Nevada data is included.
School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS)

Free aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for school attendance areas, or school catchment areas, for selected areas in the United States for the 2009-2010 school year. Includes:

• grade-specific school attendance areas for thousands of school districts
  in the United States
• 2010 Redistricting data for the school attendance areas
• crosswalks linking the school attendance areas to the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data

Developed by the Minnesota Population Center of the
University of Minnesota.

I'm all for accountability...

but you have to give people the skills, knowledge and resources to succeed. Governor Gibbons new proposal for education requires accountability but doesn't provide support. If teachers' retention, salary, etc. are based solely on student performance, how will we ever get good teachers to work in the schools most in need of help? There was a good article in Education Week on turning around poorly performing schools in Chicago by helping the teachers focus on shared learning outcomes. They worked with the Strategic Learning Initiatives organization which also provided a report on this work.

Follow the money

This map shows "national and state-by-state breakdowns of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that has been budgeted for distribution by the U.S. Department of Education, based on estimates by the department. These amounts...do not include funds that are to be awarded through competitive grants...

For current news as well as a collection of articles and opinions (blog posts), see EdWeek's "Schools and the Stimulus" page:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/schools-stimulus/index.html

Expanded Learning Time for ELL's

Several schools are restructuring and expanding the school day for ELL's to help them catch up to their schoolmates. By kindergarten, ELL's are 5,000-7,000 vocabulary words behind and by high school that deficit may be as high as 50,000 words. A pilot program in Massachusetts has extended the school year by 300 hours as they move from bilingual education to English immersion. The full report is available here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/ell_report.html

School district revenues and expenditures

The most recent data released by NCES is for fiscal year 2006. Specifics on what the report covers are summarized below. While Nevada was near the median in terms of both revenues and expenditures, there was over a 200% difference in expenditures per student for schools with the lowest vs. the highest revenues. The report is fairly brief with the bulk of information presented in tables.

"The School District Finance Survey for School Year 2005-06 (fiscal year 2006), part of the Common Core of Data (CCD), presents data submitted annually to NCES by state education agencies (SEAs) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. All financial transactions associated with assets, expenditures, revenues, and indebtedness are accounted for, including revenues from federal, state, and local sources and expenditures in categories such as instruction and instruction-related activities, student support services, administration, operation, capital outlay, and debt services... this report focuses on school districts that operate public schools and charter school districts.

The survey found that regular school districts had median total revenues per pupil of $10,173 in FY 06. The federal range ratio was 1.9, which indicates that the magnitude of the difference between total revenues per pupil at the 5th ($7,349) and 95th ($21,048) percentiles of districts was approximately 190 percent. Independent charter school districts had median total revenues per pupil of $8,357 in FY 06, with a federal range ratio of 1.9. For regular school districts, median current expenditures per pupil were $8,587 in FY 06. Median expenditures per pupil on instruction and instruction-related activities in regular school districts were $5,528. For independent charter school districts, median current expenditures per pupil were $7,499 in FY 06. Median expenditures per pupil on instruction and instruction-related activities in independent charter school districts were $4,123."

New NCES Report on the 100 Largest School Districts: 2005-06

Nevada has 2 of the 100 largest school districts based on 2005-06 data: Clark County ranks # 6 and Washoe County ranks #58.

This report describes the characteristics of the 100 largest public elementary and secondary school districts in the United States and its jurisdictions. These districts are defined as the 100 largest according to the size of their student population. The information in this report was provided by state education agency officials to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for inclusion in the Common Core of Data (CCD). The report uses data from the 2005–06 school year and includes student membership and staff in public schools and school districts in the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Bureau of Indian Education, the Department
of Defense dependents schools (overseas and domestic), and the four outlying areas (American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). This report also includes graduate counts, high school dropout rates, and graduation rates for the 2004–05 school year and revenues and expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2005.
Highlights of the report include the following:

• The 100 largest public school districts, representing less than 1 percent (0.6 percent) of all school districts in the United States and jurisdictions, were responsible for the education of 23 percent of all public school students.
• The 100 largest public school districts employed 22 percent of the United States and jurisdictions’ public school full-time-equivalent (FTE) teachers and contained 17 percent of all public schools and 20 percent of public high school completers.
• The 100 largest public school districts had larger average school enrollments compared to the average for all school districts (695 vs. 518) as well as a higher median pupil/teacher ratio (15.9 vs. 15.4).
• The percentage of students in the 100 largest public school districts who were other than White, non-Hispanic was 71 percent, compared to 44 percent of students in all school districts.
• In FY 2005, current expenditures per pupil in the 100 largest public school districts ranged from lows of $5,104 in the Puerto Rico Department of Education and $5,503 in the Alpine District, Utah to a high of $18,878 in the District of Columbia Public Schools and $17,988 in Boston, Massachusetts.
• Three states—California, Florida, and Texas—accounted for 45 percent of the 100 largest public school districts.

The report is available for viewing and download here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008339

NCES Report: 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States (2004-05)

Hi readers,
It's been ages since I posted anything...I can only plead the challenges of moving to a new state and a new job. So yes, I am now in Las Vegas, where I have been made to feel most welcome by the UNLV Libraries staff. Here's a new report from NCES on large public schools.

This annual report provides basic information from the Common Core of Data about the nation's largest public school districts in the 2004-05 school year. The data include such characteristics as the numbers of students and teachers, number of high school completers and the averaged freshman graduation rate, and revenues and expenditures. Among the findings: These 100 largest districts enrolled 23 percent of all public school students, and employed 20 percent of all public school teachers in 2004-05. The 100 largest districts produced 20 percent of all high school completers (both diploma and other completion credential recipients) in 2003-04. Across these districts, the averaged freshman graduation rate was 70.2 percent. Four states -- California, Florida, Texas, and New York -- accounted for more than half of the 100 largest public school districts. Current per-pupil expenditures in fiscal year 2003 ranged from a low of $4,351 in the Puerto Rico School District to a high of $17,337 in Boston, Massachusetts.

There's also a new report on private schools.
Characteristics of Private Schools in the United States: Results from the 2005-2006 Private School Universe Survey (NCES 2008-315). This report on the 2005-2006 Private School Universe Survey presents data on private schools in the United States with grades kindergarten through 12 by selected characteristics.