To What Extent Are States Using Categories Other Than the Five Standard Federal Categories?

Eight states reported using any categories other than the five standard federal categories (Table 1), and three states indicated that modifications to the five standard federal categories are being considered. The remaining 38 states and the District of Columbia have neither made changes nor are considering making changes to the standard federal categories for their information collections. For informational purposes, column 1 of Table 1 presents the percent minority enrollment of elementary and secondary students in each state and the District of Columbia as of fall 1995 (U.S. Department of Education,1997). Five of the states that have made changes use a "multiracial" category, and North Carolina uses an "other" category without specification (Table 2). Rhode Island uses "other, with specification" for special education students and students with limited English proficiency. Alaska has divided the American Indian or Alaskan Native category into two separate categories, whereas California has removed Filipino from the Asian or Pacific Islander category and made it a separate classification. The three states that were considering modifications to the categories-Arizona, Kansas, and Maryland-are each considering the addition of some form of a "multiracial" or "other" category (not shown in tables). Six of the eight states using categories other than the standard federal categories modify the data collected to fit into the federal categories prior to reporting the racial/ethnic makeup of their student populations to the federal government (Table 3). To do this, three states, Florida, Georgia, and Indiana, use a formula based on the proportion of students in each racial/ethnic category to distribute students into the five standard federal categories; the other three states collapse additional categories back into the standard federal categories. Ohio and North Carolina place all multiracial students into a "non-reported" category.

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