Introduction
This report presents findings on the numbers and types of public elementary and secondary schools in the United States and other jurisdictions1 in the 2005–06 school year, using data from the Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey of the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system. The CCD is an annual collection of data that are reported by state education agencies to the National Center for Education Statistics through its agent, the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey reports the numbers and types of schools. Information about schools includes the type of school, its status (new, continuing, closed, etc.), and whether it is a charter school, magnet school, or Title I school. The survey also reports the numbers of students and the school's "locale type," that is, whether it is in a city, suburb, town, or rural area.
State education agencies participate voluntarily in the CCD, following standard definitions for the data items they report. In some cases, state education agencies may be unable to report a data item, or may not be able to follow the definition exactly. Examples of situations that could lead to missing data would be a state that collected only limited information about charter schools, or that did not have a way of identifying magnet schools. All states and the District of Columbia reported in the 2005–06 CCD collection. Missing data items were imported from a public website for the Bureau of Indian Education.
Not all schools report students. This is because the CCD allows a student to be reported in membership for only one school.2 Some schools, particularly vocational schools, provide education to students who are included in the membership of other schools. Schools that provide services but do not count students in membership are identified as "shared time" schools.
While tables include data for all of the CCD respondents, the discussion of findings in the text includes only the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The tables in this report include counts, percentages, and ratios.
More information about the survey content and methodology can be found in Appendix A: Methodology and Technical Notes, of this report. The data items are defined in Appendix B: Common Core of Data Glossary.
More information about the CCD surveys and products is available at http://nces.ed.gov/ccd.
1 The CCD includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense dependents schools (domestic and overseas), Bureau of Indian Education, Puerto Rico and the four other jurisdictions of American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
2 Membership is the count of students enrolled on October 1 of the school year.