• Data Products
  • Data Files and Electronic Code Book: ECLS-K First-Grade Public-Use Child File
  • Data Files: The Common Core of Data
  • National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99) Public Access Data Analysis System (DAS)
  • National Household Education Survey of 1999 Data Files
  • Data File: State Library Agencies Survey: Fiscal Year 2000
• Other Publications
  • Student Data Handbook for Elementary, Secondary, and Early Childhood Education: 2001 Update
  • Students Whose Parents Did Not Go to College: Postsecondary Access, Persistence, and Attainment
  • Highlights From the 2000 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• Funding Opportunities
  • The AERA Grants Program
  • The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K) is following a nationally representative sample of children from kindergarten through the fifth grade, measuring their home and academic environments, opportunities, and achievements. During the 1998–99 school year, this NCES-sponsored study collected base-year data on over 20,000 kindergartners from a wide variety of public and private kindergarten programs and from diverse racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. During the following school year, it collected data on the same children as first-graders as well as data on additional first-graders who were brought into the sample through a freshening process in order to make the sample representative of U.S. first-graders in 1999–2000. Data were collected in both the fall and spring of the kindergarten and first-grade years.

This CD-ROM contains first-grade public-use data from ECLS-K, including both the fall and the spring data. All data collected from the sampled children and from their parents, teachers, and schools are included. In addition to the data files, the CD-ROM contains an electronic code book (ECB) and a user’s manual that provides survey and ECB documentation. The user’s manual is also available as a separate volume (NCES 2002–135) on the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov).

Data Files: The Common Core of Data

The Common Core of Data (CCD) is the primary NCES database on elementary and secondary public education in the United States. The CCD survey system annually collects data on all U.S. public elementary and secondary schools, school districts and other local education agencies, and state education agencies. Most of the data are obtained from administrative records maintained by the state education agencies. Included are general descriptive data on schools and school districts, data on students and staff, and fiscal data.

How to get the latest CCD data files

Over the past year, NCES has released several CCD data files, and additional files are scheduled for release in the spring of 2002. All of the current data can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov) either in SAS files or in flat files that can be used with other statistical processing programs, such as SPSS. Documentation is provided in separate files. The following list describes specific data files that became available in the summer and fall of 2001.

Descriptions of specific data files

Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey: School Year 1999–2000 (NCES 2001–344). This data file lists and provides information on approximately 94,000 public elementary and secondary schools. It includes the following information for each school: NCES and state school ID number; name and ID number of the agency that operates the school; name, address, and phone number of the school; school type (regular, special education, vocational education, charter, or magnet); locale code (seven categories, from urban to rural); number of students by grade, race/ethnicity, sex, and free lunch eligibility; and number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) classroom teachers. To download these data, visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov). For questions on these data, contact John Sietsema (John.Sietsema@ed.gov).

Local Education Agency (School District) and School Universe Survey Longitudinal Data File: 1986–1997 (NCES 2001–381). This set of longitudinal data files tracks public schools and school districts over a 12-year period. Both the school and the district files are available as complete 12-year files (without names and addresses) and, for ease of downloading, single-year files (with names and addresses). Because each school and school district has a unique ID, users can link single-year files by the ID. Data include counts of students, teachers, and graduates. The files provide imputed values for data that were not originally reported by states. To download the longitudinal data, visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov). For questions on these data, contact Lee Hoffman (lee.hoffman@ed.gov).

Local Education Agency Universe Survey: School Year 1999–2000 (NCES 2001–342). This data file lists and provides information on approximately 17,000 school districts and other local education agencies. It includes the following information for each agency: NCES agency ID number; name, address, and phone number of agency; agency type (e.g., regular school district, headquarters of supervisory union, or federally operated agency); county name; locale code; number of students (ungraded and total prekindergarten through grade 12); number of special education and limited-English-proficient students; number of diploma recipients and other high school completers; and number of instructional and support staff by field. To download these data, visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov). For questions on these data, contact John Sietsema (john.sietsema@ed.gov).

Local Education Agency (School District) Universe Dropout Data 1998–1999 (NCES 2002–310). Starting with the 1997–98 school year, dropout data for local education agencies have been reported in a separate data file. The 1998–99 file provides dropout data for the local education agencies in 43 states and other jurisdictions. In addition to each agency’s NCES ID code, name, address, and phone number, the Dropout File provides the following information: number of dropouts by grade, race/ethnicity, and sex; dropout rates by grade, race/ethnicity, and sex; and the enrollment base used in computing the dropout rates. Users can merge the Dropout File with the Local Education Agency Universe File by using the NCES ID code for the agency. To download the dropout data, visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov). For questions on these data, contact Lee Hoffman (lee hoffman@ed.gov).

State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 1999–2000 (NCES 2001–345). This data file provides aggregate, state-level data on public elementary and secondary education for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, five outlying areas, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Department of Defense. It includes the following information for each of these jurisdictions: name, address, and telephone number of the state education agency; number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) instructional staff, guidance counselors, library staff, support staff, and administrative staff; number of students by grade, and number of high school completers by race/ethnicity. To download these data, visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov). For questions on these data, contact John Sietsema (John.Sietsema@ed.gov).

National Public Education Financial Survey, SY 1998–99, FY 1999 (NCES 2001–343). This data file provides detailed data on public elementary and secondary education finances for the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five outlying areas. For each of these jurisdictions, the data file includes revenues by source (local, intermediate, state, and federal); local revenues by type (e.g., local property taxes); current expenditures by function (instruction, support, and non-instruction) and by object (e.g., teacher salaries or food service supplies); capital expenditures (e.g., school construction and instructional equipment); average number of students in daily attendance; and total number of students enrolled. To download these data, visit the NCES Web Site (http://nces.ed.gov). For questions on these data, contact Frank Johnson (frank.johnson@ed.gov).

National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99) Public Access Data Analysis System (DAS)

Featured on this CD-ROM are data from the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99). NSOPF:99 provides postsecondary education researchers, policymakers, and planners with updated information on faculty and instructional staff, including their backgrounds, responsibilities, workloads, salaries, benefits, attitudes, and future plans. This is the first CD to incorporate NSOPF:99 data into the NSOPF Data Analysis System (DAS).

DAS software provides convenient public access to several NCES surveys, allowing users to produce custom-made tables and correlation matrices by selecting variables of interest from lists. In addition to the NSOPF:99 data, this CD also includes all the other data sets that have been made available for public use through DAS software. Visit the DAS Home Page (http://nces.ed.gov/das) for a list of available data sets as well as access to the latest updates.

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) encompasses a number of telephone surveys of households designed to address a wide range of education-related issues. In 1999, three NHES surveys were conducted: the Parent Survey (Parent-NHES:1999), the Youth Survey (Youth-NHES:1999), and the Adult Education Survey (AE-NHES:1999). For Parent-NHES:1999, parents were interviewed about their children; topics included parent involvement with children’s education, the development and school readiness of young children, and parent preparations for the postsecondary education of older children. Youth-NHES:1999 collected data from 6th- to 12th-grade students about their community service involvement, their civic development, and their preparations for postsecondary education. AE-NHES:1999 collected data from adults about their educational activities.

The NHES:1999 data files are available in ASCII format and can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site. These data files contain weights that were revised on June 1, 2001. SAS, SPSS, and Stata setup files are also provided.

The State Library Agencies (StLA) Survey is conducted annually by NCES as a cooperative effort with the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA), the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), and the U.S. Census Bureau. The StLA Survey provides state and federal policymakers, researchers, and other interested users with descriptive information about state library agencies in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The StLA Survey for fiscal year 2000, the seventh in the series, collected data on 423 items, including services to libraries and systems, electronic services and information, public service hours, service outlets, service and development transactions, collections, allied operations, staff, income, and expenditures.

The StLA Survey file is available in both Microsoft Access and ASCII formats. The data and related documentation can be downloaded from the NCES Web Site.

The Student Data Handbook for Elementary, Secondary, and Early Childhood Education was developed to provide guidance concerning the consistent maintenance of student information. It defines data elements and definitions describing personal information, enrollment, school participation and activities, out-of-school experiences, assessment, transportation, health, special program participation, and discipline. The handbook is a tool to help the public and the American school system make information about students more useful and effective in meeting student needs.

The 2001 update provides change pages that can be inserted into the 2000 edition of the handbook. Changes include insertion of new data elements, as well as revision of some of the data elements and definitions.

This 38-page booklet contains an essay summarizing the findings of several recent NCES studies about the experiences of high school graduates and postsecondary students whose parents did not attend college. The essay originally appeared in The Condition of Education: 2001. Each year, The Condition of Education summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a new system of international assessments that focus on 15-year-olds’ capabilities in reading, mathematics, and science literacy. PISA is implemented on a 3-year cycle that began in 2000. Each PISA assessment cycle focuses on one particular subject, although all three are assessed in each cycle. PISA 2000 focuses on reading literacy, measuring how well 15-year-olds are able to apply different reading processes to a wide range of reading materials. This 12-page brochure presents highlights of the U.S. results from PISA 2000.

Jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCES, and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), this training and research program is administered by the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The program has four major elements: a research grants program, a dissertation grants program, a fellows program, and a training institute. The program is intended to enhance the capability of the U.S. research community to use large-scale data sets, specifically those of the NSF and NCES, to conduct studies that are relevant to educational policy and practice, and to strengthen communications between the educational research community and government staff.

Applications for this program may be submitted at any time. The application review board meets three times per year. The following are examples of grants recently awarded under the program:

• Motoko Akiba, Mills College—National, School, and Teacher Effects on Student Victimization of School Violence: A Cross-National Study of 49 Nations From TIMSS 1995 and TIMSS 1999
• Corinne Alfeld, Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute—African-American HBCU Students Who Began at Community Colleges
• Marcia Bellas, University of Cincinnati—Age and Advanced Degrees: A Comparison of Older and Younger College Graduates and the Pursuit of Graduate Education
• Karen Bradley, Western Washington University—Gendered Pipelines: A Cross-National Study of Sex Segregation in Engineering and Computer Science Fields of Study
• Sophia Catsambis, Queens College, CUNY—Vital Connections for Students At Risk: Family, Neighborhood, and School Influences on School Engagement and Dropping Out
• Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago—Consequences of Parental Job Loss for Adolescents’ School Performance and Educational Attainment
• David Mustard, University of Georgia—Merit Aid Sorting: The Effects of HOPE-Style Scholarships on College Stratification by Ability, Race, and Gender
• Therese Pigott, Loyola University Chicago—Correlates of Success in Kindergarten

• Lora Cohen-Vogel, Vanderbilt University—School Governance at the Intersection of Public School Choice and Accountability
• Ashlesha Datar, RAND Graduate School—Does Entering Kindergarten at an Older Age Lead to Better School Performance?
• Jessica Howell, University of Virginia—Eliminating Affirmative Action in Higher Education: Restricting Access or Engendering Equality?
• Dongbin Kim, University of California, Los Angeles—The Effects of Loans on Students’ Degree Attainment: Differences by Race and SES
• Tatiana Melguizo, Stanford University—What Types of Institutions Are Doing a Better Job Graduating Minorities? A Comparative Analysis for African-American, Hispanic, and White Students in the U.S. in the Last Two Decades
• Sarah Reber, Harvard University—Court-Ordered Desegregation Plans: Implications for Segregation, ‘White Flight,’ Residential Segregation, and School Finance
• Marjorie Wallace, Michigan State University—Making Sense of the Links: From Government Policy to Student Achievement

The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program

The NAEP Secondary Analysis Grant Program was developed to encourage education researchers to conduct secondary analysis studies using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the NAEP High School Transcript Studies. This program is open to all public or private organizations and consortia of organizations. The program is typically announced annually, in the late fall, in the Federal Register. Grants awarded under this program run from 12 to 18 months and awards range from $15,000 to $100,000. The following grants were awarded for fiscal year 2001:

• David Grissmer, Rand Corporation—Analyzing State NAEP Data to Address Educational Policy Issues in K–12 Education
• Lawrence Rudner, LMP Associates, Inc.—Scoring Content Essays Using Bayesian Networks
• Robert Lissitz, University of Maryland—Science Achievement in Social Contexts: An Alternative Method for Analysis of Data From NAEP
• Richard Niemi, University of Rochester—Components of Knowledge in the NAEP 1998 Civics Main and Trend Assessments
• Daniel Sherman, American Institutes for Research—Application of Small Area Estimation Methods to NAEP
• Claudia Gentile, Educational Testing Service—Evaluating the “Creative” in Creative Writing
• Matthew Schultz, ACT, Inc.—Describing Achievement Levels With Multiple Domain Scores