Early Estimates:

Public Elementary and Secondary Education Statistics: School Year 1995-96

May 1996

The estimates in this publication are key statistics reported early in the 1995-96 school year. They include the number of students in membership, teachers, and high school graduates for public elementary and secondary schools, and total revenues and expenditures for the operation of public elementary and secondary schools. The public school estimates consist of three kinds of data: preliminary actual counts for individual states; estimates derived by the states for the (NCES); and imputed values developed by NCES using a combination of state-specific and national data.

Highlights

There were approximately 44.7 million students in the nation’s public elementary and secondary schools in fall 1995 compared with 44.0 million in fall 1994. Student membership has increased by 2.6 million since fall 1991 (table 1).
Public school students were taught by an estimated 2.6 million teachers this school year, 1995-96 (table 2).
The student membership and teacher count data yield pupil-to-teacher ratios for grade levels prekindergarten through 12 of 17.3 for public schools in school year 1995-96 (table 7).
An estimated 2.3 million public school students graduated from high school in the 1994-95 school year. An additional 2.3 million students are expected to graduate from high school in the 1995-96 school year (table 3).
Revenues for public elementary and secondary education in fiscal year 1995 are estimated to be $269.5 billion (table 4), and they are expected to rise to approximately $283.3 billion in fiscal year 1996. The per-pupil expenditure for public education is anticipated to be $5,738 per student in membership for the 1995-96 school year (table 7).

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank all of the people in the state education agencies who supplied the data for this publication. This paper would not have been possible without their contributions, This report was prepared under the overall guidance and direction of Paul Planchon, Associate Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Statistics in NCES. The author also acknowledges the comments and suggestions of the following reviewers: Cindy Prince of the National Education Goals Panel, Nancy Protheroe of the Educational Research Service, William Sonnenberg of NCEWDDD, William Hussar of NCES/SSMD and Lee Hoffman, Robert Burton, and Marilyn McMillen of NCES. A special thanks from the author goes to Frank H. Johnson, for his statistical expertise in putting this publication together.

The Early Estimates System

The early estimates system is designed to allow NCES to report selected key statistics early in the school year. The information is collected through contact with public school state education agencies.

The source of universe statistical information about public elementary and secondary education is the Common Core of Data (CCD)--data collected annually by NCES from state education agencies. For most CCD surveys, these data are reported to NCES from March through September, after which they undergo NCES and state editing, and are adjusted for missing data. High school graduate and fiscal data are reported a year later than student and teacher data. In contrast, the estimates included in this report were reported in March of the school year to which they apply.

Forty-seven states, the District of Columbia and three outlying areas participated in the public school early estimates survey. The estimates reported here were provided by state education agencies year and represent the best information on public elementary and secondary schools available to states at this early stage of the school year. They are, however, subject to revision. The estimates for the remaining three states (Arizona, Massachusetts, and New Jersey), and two outlying areas (American Samoa and Guam), were imputed by NCES.

TECHNICAL NOTES

Public School Early Estimates Methodology

In late October 1995, survey forms were sent out to each state education agency. States were asked to return by mail or fax the completed form. Those which had not responded by December were contacted by telephone. All data were checked for reasonableness against prior years’ reports, and follow-up calls were made to resolve any questions. In some cases the change from 1995 to 1996 reflected improved reporting. When states did not supply a data item, NCES imputed a value. These values are footnoted “a”. If one or more states required an imputed number, then the national total for that item is marked as imputed since the total contains one or more imputed values.

Data labeled as “actual” in this publication are as reported to NCES by state education agencies, and do not include imputations for missing data. Therefore, a value in this report may differ from the value for the same data element given in other publications, when the latter value is based on imputation. For example, student membership for fall 1994 is reported here as 44,015,084. In April 1996 Statistics in Brief publication, student membership for fall 1994 is reported as 44,108,775. The last number contains imputations for missing prekindergarten students in four states (Alabama, California, South Carolina and Tennessee).Similar variations occur in all but the high school graduate data.

Missing values for student membership were imputed by multiplying a state’s membership data from the 1994-95 school year by the rate of growth experienced by that state in student membership from 1993-94 to 1994-95.

Missing values for other data elements were imputed by state, using ratios of the missing quantity to the student membership value, and then adjusting this number by the national average percent change from the previous year for this element. For example, the procedure for imputing the number of teachers in the 1995-96 school year involved: (1) calculating the teacher-to-student ratio in the given state in 1994-95; (2) calculating the total growth rate in teacher-to-student ratios for reporting states from 1994-95 to 1995-96; and (3) multiplying the state student membership for the 1995-96 school year by the ratio calculated in step 1, and then multiplying this product by the growth rate calculated in step 2. Equivalent procedures were used for imputing numbers of high school graduates, revenues, and current expenditures. When a national total includes imputed state values, that national total is reported as an imputed number.

Accuracy of Estimates

Past years’ data provide an indication of the differences between early estimates and final data. The early estimate of public school membership for fall 1994 was 44,034,416, which represented an increase of 1.5 percent from the fall 1993 value. The actual increase, based on the actual count of 44,015,084, was 1.5 percent. Last year’s estimate indicated that there were 2,547,267 public school teachers for 1994-95, implying an increase of 1.9” percent over the previous year. The actual increase of public school teachers over that year was 1.8 percent. For the number of public school graduates, the estimate indicated an decrease of 0.4 percent from 1992-93 to 1993-94, while actual numbers indicate an actual decrease of 0.8 percent. Revenues were estimated to increase 4.1 percent from 1992-93 to 1993-94, while the actual increase was 5.1 percent. The estimated increase in current expenditures, from 1992-93 to 1993-94, was 7.5 percent, as compared with an actual increase of 5.1 percent.

Looking at last year’s estimates for each state and comparing them with final data, we see that all states’ estimates of student membership for school year 1994-95 were within 10 percent of the final actual count. Four states’ estimate for teachers were in error by more, than 10 percent of the actual count. All but one state’s estimate for high school graduates were within 10 percent of the actual count of graduates for school year 1993-94. For this same school year (fiscal year 1994), two states’ estimates for revenues and four states’ estimates for expenditures differed from the final reported amount by more than 10 percent of that amount.

Definitions

Membership is the unduplicated count of students on the roll of the school or local education agency on the school day closest to October 1; students who withdrew from school have been removed from the count. Unless otherwise specified, membership includes all students in prekindergarten through grade 12 and ungraded classes.

Teachers are professional staff who provide instruction to students and maintain daily student attendance figures for a group or class at any of the levels from prekindergarten through grade 12 and ungraded classes. Teacher numbers are reported in full-time equivalents (FTE), which are computed by dividing the amount of time employed in instruction by the time normally required of a full-time position.

Pupil-to-teacher ratio is the number of students divided by the number of teachers. The pupil-to-teacher ratio for public schools reported here represents an average across all levels. There is, however, variability across prekindergarten, elementary, and secondary grade levels and across programs such as special education and gifted and talented.

Graduates are defined as students receiving a regular high school diploma during the school year, including summer graduates. Early estimates are provided for the recent graduates from the 1994-95 school year, with projections for the 1995-96 school year.

Revenues are defined as additions to assets which do not incur an obligation that must be met at some future date, do not represent exchanges of fixed assets, and are available for expenditure by the local education agencies in the state. Revenues include funds from local, intermediate, state, and federal sources.

Current expenditures are funds spent for operating local public schools and include such items as salaries for school personnel, student transportation, school books and materials, and energy costs, but exclude capital outlay and interest on school debt.

Per pupil expenditure (or per pupil revenue) is the total current expenditure (or revenue) for public elementary and secondary education in a state divided by the student membership. The numbers reported here, based on membership, can be expected to be smaller than per pupil expenditures (and per pupil revenues) based on average daily attendance, because the membership counts are generally larger than average daily attendance.

As with pupil-to-teacher ratio, the average reported here does not reflect variations across school districts, grade levels or programs.

For More Information

For information about the Public School Early Estimates System or the Common Core of Data, contact Lena McDowell, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.

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