Introduction

This report presents data from the School District Finance Survey (F-33) for School Year 2007–08 (fiscal year 2008, or FY 08). The F-33 is a district-level survey that consists of data submitted annually to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) by state education agencies (SEAs) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Because the purpose of this report is to introduce new data through the presentation of tables containing descriptive information, only selected findings are presented. These findings have been chosen to demonstrate the range of information available when using the Common Core of Data (CCD) rather than to discuss all observed differences, and they are not meant to emphasize any particular issue. However, because charter school and regular school data are reported separately, findings are reported separately for these school types.

The F-33 is part of the CCD surveys that collect administrative records data from SEAs. The data are collected and edited by the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau for NCES. All 50 states and the District of Columbia provided data for FY 08. 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.

A variety of types of local education agencies are reported in the F-33. While agencies whose only function is to collect and allocate funds or to provide certain administrative services for a group of districts are also included on the file, this report focuses on regular public school districts and charter school districts.¹

Tables 1 through 6 in this report include all regular school districts with student counts greater than zero and that are listed in the CCD Local Education Agency Universe Survey file for school year 2007–08. There were 15,261 such districts in FY 08. National figures exclude independent charter school districts; however, charter schools affiliated with regular school districts are included in national and state figures. Independent charter school district data are reported separately at the end of tables 1 through 4 and are included in tables 5 and 6.

Table 7 presents the revenues and current expenditures of the 100 largest school districts according to the size of their student enrollment, as reported in the F-33. The federal revenues table (table 8) includes all local education agencies reported in the F-33. Please see Appendix A: Methodology and Technical Notes for more information about survey content and methodology. Appendix B is a glossary of key CCD terms used in this report.

More information about CCD surveys and products is available at the CCD website.

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