Appendix A.2. EDFacts

EDFacts is a centralized data collection through which state education agencies submit PK–12 education data to the U.S. Department of Education (ED). All data in EDFacts are organized into "data groups" and reported to ED using defined file specifications. Depending on the data group, state education agencies may submit aggregate counts for the state as a whole or detailed counts for individual schools or school districts. EDFacts does not collect student-level records. The entities that are required to report EDFacts data vary by data group but may include the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense (DoD) dependents schools, the Bureau of Indian Education, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin islands. More information about EDFacts file specifications and data groups can be found at http://www.ed.gov/EDFacts.

EDFacts is a universe collection and is not subject to sampling error, but nonsampling errors such as nonresponse and inaccurate reporting may occur. The U.S. Department of Education attempts to minimize nonsampling errors by training data submission coordinators and reviewing the quality of state data submissions. However, anomalies may still be present in the data.

Differences in state data collection systems may limit the comparability of EDFacts data across states and across time. To build EDFacts files, state education agencies rely on data that were reported by their schools and school districts. The systems used to collect these data are evolving rapidly and differ from state to state.

In some cases, EDFacts data may not align with data reported on state education agency websites. States may update their websites on schedules different from those they use to report data to ED. Furthermore, ED may use methods for protecting the privacy of individuals represented within the data that could be different from the methods used by an individual state.

EDFacts firearm incidents data are collected in data group 601 within file 094. EDFacts collects this data group on behalf of the Office of Safe and Healthy Students in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. The definition for this data group is "The number of incidents involving students who brought or possessed firearms at school." The reporting period is the entire school year. Data group 601 collects separate counts for incidents involving handguns, rifles/shotguns, other firearms, and multiple weapon types. The counts reported here exclude the "other firearms" category. For more information about this data group, please see file specification 094 for the relevant school year, available at http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/edfacts/file-specifications.html.

For more information about EDFacts, contact

EDFacts
Administrative Data Division
Elementary/Secondary Branch
National Center for Education Statistics
550 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20202
EDFacts@ed.gov
http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/edfacts/index.html