Appendix A—Basic Tables

Table A-1 presents basic data such as the number of students receiving educational services, full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers, 2005–06 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 or county and state, 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 2006). 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 Baltimore County Public Schools, Maryland, though smaller in size, has more high school completers than the five districts immediately preceding it.

Tables A-2, A-3, A-4, A-6, A-8, and A-9 include only schools with student membership (or regular schools with students, as specified in tables A-2, A-3, and A-4).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 385 or less, while the largest 25 percent have student memberships of 832 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 706.1 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 558 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. Grade spans, defined by a school’s lowest and highest grade offered, are used to determine a school’s instructional level. 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 percentage of schools that were Title I eligible ranged from 6 to almost 100 percent.

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Table A-7 reports 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 combined Black, non-Hispanic, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native student membership, as well as the overall percentage of combined Black, non-Hispanic, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native student membership in each district. For example, in 9,104 schools, more than 80 percent of students were Black, non-Hispanic, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, or American Indian/Alaska Native. Across all of the 100 largest school districts, 71 percent of students were Black, non-Hispanic, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, or American Indian/Alaska Native.

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 racial/ethnic groups while others have high concentrations of one 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 proportions are closer for Hispanic and Black, non-Hispanic students (39 and 32 percent, respectively).

Also shown in table A-9 is the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Two districts did not report data on the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. 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 less than 1 percent in the Brownsville Independent School District, Texas to a high of 92 percent in the Puerto Rico Department of Education.

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 five 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 presents the number of high school completers (regular diploma recipients and other completers) in the 100 largest school districts in 2005–06. Note that high school completers are reported on the CCD agency file for the previous year (e.g., 2005–06 high school completers are reported on the 2006–07 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 2006–07 (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-13 deals with school district revenues and expenditures and is based on fiscal year 2006 (school year 2005–06) 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 2006. Data for Puerto Rico were obtained from the CCD National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS).

Whereas table A-13 deals with the dollar amounts of revenues and expenditures, table A-14 presents the percentage distribution of revenues by source as well as the percentage of current expenditures spent on instruction. For example, the 100 largest school districts received 44 percent of their revenues from state sources and spent 52 percent of their current expenditures on instruction.

In table A-15 data are given on the number of students assigned to graded (three categories) and ungraded levels. In accounting for their students, 85 of the 100 largest districts assigned all of their students to numbered grades and 15 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.