Appendix A—Basic Tables

Table A-1 presents basic data such as the number of students receiving educational services, full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers, 2004–05 completers, and number of schools for each of the 100 largest school districts. Also shown is information to fully identify each school district by its city, state, and county, since the name of the district is not always sufficient for this purpose. In this and all of the other basic tables, the districts are shown in descending order of size (students in membership as of October 2005). Since the districts are displayed by the number of students, it is easy to note differences in the numbers of teachers, high school completers, and schools as they relate to districts of similar size. For example, the Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia, though smaller in size, has more high school completers than the six districts immediately preceding it.

Tables A-2, A-3, A-4, A-6, A-8, A-9, and A-12 include only schools with student membership (or regular schools with students, as specified in table A-2 and A-3).¹

Table A-2 provides information on school characteristics in the 100 largest school districts by displaying school size (students in membership) at different percentile levels, as well as mean school size for each district (computed using regular schools having membership). For example, in New York City Public Schools, New York, the table shows that the smallest 25 percent of schools have student memberships of 382 or less, while the largest 25 percent have student memberships of 869 or more. Dividing all the students in regular schools in the district by the number of such schools yields a mean, or average, size of 727.8 students. If all the regular schools in New York City Public Schools were listed by size, the school at the midpoint on the list (the median) would have 575 pupils in membership.

Table A-3 presents median pupil/teacher ratios for the schools in the 100 largest school districts by instructional level. For some districts, data were not computed for some instructional levels because data were missing for more than 20 percent of schools.

Table A-4 answers the question of how many "primary," "middle," and "high" schools there are in the 100 largest school districts. Since nearly every possible grade span is found among the schools in the 100 largest districts, grade spans are defined on the basis of the combination of the school's lowest and highest grade offered. The following four categories are used: primary (lowest grade of prekindergarten to 3; highest grade up to 8), middle (lowest grade 4 to 7; highest grade 4 to 9), high (lowest grade 7 to 12; highest grade 12), and other (all other configurations, including PK, K, or 1 to 12).

Table A-5 presents the percentage distribution of different types of FTE staff in each district. Teachers represented the largest proportion of staff. "Other staff," which made up 29 percent of the total, is defined in the appendix C—Glossary.

Table A-6 reports the number and percentage of Title I eligible schools, the percentage of students in Title I eligible schools, and the percentage of students in Title I school-wide eligible programs. The 2005–06 school year was the eighth year the CCD collected this Title I information. The percentage of schools that were Title I eligible ranged from 6 to 99 percent.

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Table A-7 reports data items that were added in the 1998–99 school year: magnet and charter schools. Among the 100 largest school districts, ninety-one were in states that reported the number of magnet schools or reported that magnet schools did not exist in that state. All districts in states that had charter schools reported the number of charter schools administered by that district. Many charter schools function as their own school districts, which is why a number of the districts in this report do not report any charter schools.

Table A-8 gives the number of schools in each district in five ranges of percentage of other than White, non-Hispanic student membership, as well as the overall percentage of other than White, non-Hispanic student membership in each district. For example, in 9,029 schools, more than 80 percent of students were other than White, non-Hispanic. Across all of the 100 largest school districts, 71 percent of students were other than White, non-Hispanic.

Whereas table A-8 deals with the number of schools in each district that have at least one student whose race is other than White, non-Hispanic, table A-9 presents the percentage of students in each district by specific racial/ethnic categories. This table illustrates that some school districts are made up of many other than White, non-Hispanic groups while others have high concentrations of one other than White, non-Hispanic group. For example, in Los Angeles Unified, California, 73 percent of students are Hispanic and 11 percent are Black, non-Hispanic, whereas in the New York Public Schools, New York, the other than White, non-Hispanic population is more evenly divided between Hispanic and Black, non-Hispanic students (39 and 33 percent, respectively).

Also shown in table A-9 is the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. One district did not report data on the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch and 1 district did not meet reporting standards. Among the 98 of the 100 largest public school districts for which data were available, the percentages of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch under the National School Lunch Program varied greatly. This percentage ranged from a low of 1 percent in the Brownsville Independent School District, Texas and San Francisco Unified, California to a high of 83 percent in the Dallas Independent School District, Texas.

Table A-10 presents the numbers of students assigned to the schools in the 100 largest school districts. It should be noted that students attending a "non-regular" school (i.e., special education, vocational education, and other or alternative education school) are often counted at their regular home school rather than the school they attend part of the day. The number and percentage of students having Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), in accordance with the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Part B, is also shown in table A-10. Except for IEP data, the student counts presented in this table are aggregated from the school level and may differ from counts presented elsewhere in this report that are derived from the school district level. For example, student counts from the district level could include students enrolled in the district but not assigned to a school (e.g., hospitalized or homebound students).

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Table A-11 presents the number of schools in the 100 largest districts by type of school. All but three of the districts have specialized schools devoted to special, vocational, or alternative education. This table also includes schools that do not have students. Schools may not have students for a variety of reasons, the most common being that the school serves a student population that is counted at another school. For example, students with dual enrollment in a regular school and a vocational education school would be counted in only one of these schools.

Table A-12 reports the number and percentage of migrant and summer migrant students, as well as the number and percentage of English language learners (ELL, formerly known as limited English proficient, or LEP). Of the 100 largest school districts, 6 did not report the number of migrant students enrolled in the previous year and 1 district reported data that did not meet reporting standards.

Table A-13 presents the number of high school completers (regular diploma recipients and other completers) in the 100 largest school districts in 2004–05. Note that high school completers are reported on the CCD agency file for the previous year (e.g., 2004–05 high school completers are reported on the 2005–06 agency file). This table also presents the grades 9–12 dropout rate and the public school averaged freshman graduation rate (using diploma recipients only) for each district for 2005–06 (see appendix B—Methodology for a discussion of the calculation of the grades 9–12 dropout rate and the averaged freshman graduation rate).

Table A-14 deals with school district revenues and expenditures and is based on fiscal year 2005 (school year 2004–05) local government financial data collected by the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. It presents the amount of revenue received by source (local, state, and federal); current expenditures and those current expenditures for instruction; and current expenditures per pupil in membership for fiscal year 2005. Data for Puerto Rico were obtained from the CCD National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS).

Whereas table A-14 deals with the dollar amounts of revenues and expenditures, table A-15 presents the percentages of revenues by source as well as the percentage of current expenditures spent on instruction. For example, the 100 largest school districts received 45 percent of their revenues from state sources and spent 53 percent of their current expenditures on instruction.

In table A-16, data are given on the number of students assigned to graded (three categories) and ungraded levels. In accounting for their students, 78 of the 100 largest districts assigned all of their students to numbered grades and 21 used the ungraded status for some students in some settings, such as special education, vocational education, and other specialized or alternative education programs. In this table, students assigned to all types of schools are counted in the grade for which they are reported. The student counts presented in this table are aggregated from the school level, and may differ from counts presented elsewhere in this report that are derived from the school district level. For example, student counts from the district level could include students enrolled in the district but not assigned to a school (e.g., hospitalized or homebound students).

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¹ Schools with membership are schools that have an enrollment of at least one student. In the Common Core of Data (CCD), schools can be reported legitimately with no student enrollment because students can be included in the enrollment for only a single school. For example, if a student is dually enrolled in a regular school and a vocational school, that student can only be reported in the membership of one of these schools. Total number of schools includes schools with and without membership.