The data in this report were collected by NCES, the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education. NCES is authorized to collect this information by Congress through the National Education Statistics Act of 1995, section 404(a), 20 U.S.C. 9003(a). The survey instrument used was the NPEFS, one of the components of the CCD, which is reported voluntarily each year by state education agencies (SEAs).
The data in this report are based on information collected annually from SEA administrative records for FY 90 through FY 02. In compiling the NPEFS, each SEA obtains data from the local education agencies (LEAs) that operate public schools under its jurisdiction. The LEAs include regular school districts, regional education services agencies, and any state-run schools such as special education residential schools or prison schools serving inmates under the age of 20. NCES and the SEAs work cooperatively to assure comparability between the data elements requested and reported. The SEAs generally edit the individual LEA reports before compiling the data into the NPEFS.
NPEFS data include revenues and expenditures for school districts and certain state-run schools and education programs, but not revenues and expenditures for the operation of SEAs. State direct support expenditures (or state payments on behalf of school districts) are included in the NPEFS data and are distributed to specific data items based on information provided to NCES by the SEAs, such as the specific functions to which the direct support is targeted. State direct support revenues are included in the revenue data as state revenues.
When NCES receives data from an SEA, it conducts edits and sends an edit report back to the state listing previous and current years' data and the percent increase (or decrease) of every item. Beginning with the FY 99 data collection, the edit functions have taken place online in a web collection tool containing interactive software. Notification of any arithmetic errors and special text containing NCES's understanding of specific missing data items are included in the edit report. States are asked to correct addition errors, verify or correct information on missing items, and explain any extraordinary changes from the previous year's data.
Pupil membership counts from the CCD State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary/Secondary Education have been included in the dataset for this report for comparability with other NCES reports. Pupil membership is the count of pupils enrolled on or about October 1 in any given year. In this report, per pupil revenues and expenditures were calculated by dividing the appropriate type of revenue or expenditure by pupil membership.
NCES provides "crosswalk" software to assist states in their reporting and to standardize data across states. This software converts a state's existing accounting reports to uniform standards in agreement with Financial Accounting for Local and State School Systems, 1990, which can be found at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=97096R. NCES frequently reviews and validates protocols for states that use their own procedures to do this. Developed by NCES, this crosswalk software was used in the following states in FY 02: Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and South Dakota.
All of the data contained in this report may be downloaded from the complete NPEFS data files available at http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/stfis.asp. The data may also be accessed through the NCES Build a Table tool, available at http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/bat. CCD publications are listed at http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/ccd_publications.asp.
Since the first draft of this report was completed, NCES has received revised data for some states for FY 01 and FY 02. In FY 01, Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, and North Carolina revised their data, resulting in a national increase in total revenues and total current expenditures of 0.1 percent. For FY 02, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee revised their data, resulting in a national decrease in total revenues of 0.1 percent. The change in total current expenditures was less than 0.1 percent (0.03 percent). The final version of this report uses the preliminary data for FY 01 and FY 02.
The data files that were the source for this report are:
