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Census 2000 School District Special Tabulation Overview

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The Census 2000 School District Special Tabulation (SDST) contains the most extensive and current set of data on children's demographics and their living environment summarized by school district, county, and state. Closely paralleling the 1990 Census School District Special Tabulation, these data provide insights into the state of education and are essential to analyze long-term trends on issues pertaining to children and PK-12 education.

 

Population items include basic population totals; urban and rural; households and families; marital status; grandparents as caregivers; language and ability to speak English; ancestry; place of birth, citizenship status, and year of entry; migration; place of work; journey to work (commuting); educational attainment; veteran status; disability; employment status; industry, occupation, and class of worker; income; and poverty status.

 

Housing items include basic housing totals; urban and rural; number of rooms; number of bedrooms; year moved into unit; household size and occupants per room; units in structure; year structure built; heating fuel; telephone service; plumbing and kitchen facilities; vehicles available; value of home; monthly rent; and shelter costs.

 

These population and housing summary statistics are organized into a set of subject matter tables and the resulting summary tabulations are provided as data files referred to as the SDST summary files.

 

America's Changing Demographics: Impact on Education and Stakeholders

America's changing demographics have a profound impact on education and its stakeholders. Important attributes of changing demographics are not simply limited to the population in an area served by a school or school system. Families and their children, students, school boards, superintendents, teachers, and the community are each important, interact, and influence each other.

 

Demographic data play a critically important role in the analysis of many dimensions of K-12 education. These issues include topics such as addressing special needs of students with disabilities, long-term outcomes of early childhood programs, assessing the impact of Federally funded programs intended to address special demographic cohort needs, bilingual issues, matters involving diversity, immigration, migrant populations, and many others.

 

Taking this to a more personal level ... what is the per capita income of your school district? What are the richest and poorest school districts based on per capita income? Get answers to these questions by viewing the sample New York school districts spreadsheet file.

SDST data are patterned similar to the Census 2000 Summary File 3 tabulations but include many exceptions and several extensions to that scope of subject matter.

 

 

What Subject Matter Tables are Available?

The SF3-SDST summary data are similar to the Summary File 3 (the standard sample data product) in its use of 821 unique tables (cross-tabulations) - 492 population tables and 329 housing tables. Population tables are identified with a "P" or "PCT" and housing tables are identified with an "H" or "HCT" prefix, followed by a sequential number. Tables identified with a "PCT" or "HCT" prefix were originally designed for tract level and higher geographies in Summary File 3. There are 16 "P" tables, 15 "PCT" tables, and 20 "HCT" tables that bear an alphabetic suffix on the table number, indicating that they are repeated for nine major race and Hispanic or Latino groups. These selected tables are repeated by the following: White alone; Black or African American alone; American Indian and Alaska Native alone; Asian alone; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone; Some other race alone; Two or more races; Hispanic or Latino; and White alone, not Hispanic or Latino.

 

The SDST extends SF3 by providing the standard set of population and housing tables for school district geographies and by iterating these tables with multiple, child-specific universes (also referred to as record types). This extended set of tabulations provides one of the largest, most detailed sources of children's demographics ever developed by the U.S. Census Bureau and the largest source of children's characteristics available from Census 2000.

 

Different tables are available for Different Record Types. See the list of tables available by record type described in a comparative table manner.

 

Important Features

The SF3-School District Special Tabulation (SF3-SDST) differs from Summary File 3 in two fundamental ways. First, SF3-SDST tabulates Census 2000 sample data according to school district geography. Although school district codes are available on the block summary level of the Redistricting/PL94-171 data files and Summary File 1, no standard Census 2000 data product provides data for school district summary levels. Second, SF3-SDST tabulates the standard set of SF3 data tables for multiple, child-specific universes. These unique demographic and geographic features are discussed below.

 

School District Geography

School district organization and geographic structure varies by state and region. States provide district boundaries to the Census Bureau as part of a biennial update program, and they classify districts as Unified (primarily serving children of all grade levels), Secondary (primarily serving children in secondary grades), or Elementary (primarily serving children in elementary grades). Some states have small areas (either land or water) that are not covered by a school district. These residual areas are included as a unique record in the tabulation and they may or may not contain population or housing units.

 

In addition to regular school districts, the SF3-SDST includes administrative subdistrict areas for the state of Hawaii (organized as a single, state-wide school system) and the New York City public schools (the nation’s largest school system). SF3-SDST does not identify school systems administrated by the Department of Defense or the Bureau of Indian Affairs, except in cases where states report schools administrated by these agencies as regular school systems. SF3-SDST includes limited data for Puerto Rico (Territory and Municipio records), but it does not include data for school systems in the remaining outlying territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and the Virgin Islands).

 

School district boundaries for the 2000 SDST were collected from states in the Fall of 1999 and represent the boundaries for the 1999-2000 academic year. These boundaries were included in the Census Bureau’s TIGER database and provide the geographic framework for all school district tabulations. Unlike 1990 when district boundaries could potentially split census blocks, the 2000 school district boundaries are composed entirely of whole blocks.

 

Relevant Children

A child is relevant to a school district if he/she lives within the territory of the district and his/her assigned grade falls within the grade range provided by a district. One of the unique features of school district geography is the potential for district boundaries to share the same physical territory but serve children of different grade levels. This overlap typically occurs in areas organized by Elementary and Secondary school districts. In cases where district boundaries overlap, SF3-SDST provides data iterations that offer both a physical count (total children within district boundaries) and a functional count (children within district boundaries for whom a district is responsible) to address areas where school districts do not serve all grade ranges. Some SF3-SDST iterations allow people and housing units applicable to more than one district to be tabulated independently in each applicable district as part of its total population or housing. However, when a child’s residence is located within multiple districts, other SF3-SDST iterations assign the child as relevant to a single school district (based on the child’s assigned grade and district that serves that grade level). This allows children to be tabulated as part of the total population for each applicable district, but avoids duplicate tabulation when the intent is to identify children for whom a district is educationally responsible. This distinction is not necessary in areas where a single district serves children of all grade levels within its attendance area, and non-district geographies (U.S., American Indian Areas, States, and Counties) are not affected by relevancy assignments. Relevant district assignments are dependent on a number of other characteristics including: the definition of a child, a child’s grade level, the location of a child's residence relative to school district boundaries, and the grade span served by school districts in which a child resides. These elements are discussed below

 

Children Definition

For the 2000 SDST and estimates/projections developed by Proximity, a child is defined as a person age less than one year to 17 or a person age 18 or 19 who is not a high school graduate (for Census 2000, based on the educational attainment response from the Census 2000 questionnaire). Age is as of April 1, 2000 for SDST and as of July 1 in estimation/projection years. For the SDST, the definition slightly differs from the child definition used in the 1990 school district tabulation in two ways. First, the 1990 definition of children did not include people ages 0 to 2. Second, the 1990 tabulation did not include high school graduates under age 18 as children.

 

Public and Private School Enrollment

For Census 2000, public and private school enrollment includes people who attended school in the reference period and indicated they were enrolled by marking one of the questionnaire categories for either 'public school, public college' or 'private school, private college.' Schools supported and controlled primarily by a federal, state, or local government are defined as public (including tribal schools). Those supported and controlled primarily by religious organizations or other private groups are private. This same definition and distinction is used in Proximity estimates and projections.

 

Grade Augmentations

The Census 2000 enrollment categories (Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, Grades 1 to 4, Grades 5 to 8, and Grades 9 to 12) provide a very good match with the grade spans served by most U.S. school districts. However, a small percentage of school districts have grade spans that do not conform to the grade level categories provided in the Census 2000 long form questionnaire. These cases typically involve Elementary districts with an upper grade of 5th, 6th, or 7th, and Secondary districts with a lower grade of 6th, 7th, or 8th. Unfortunately, the Census grade category responses are not sufficient to make relevant assignments for children residing in these areas with overlapping district geography and non-conforming district grade ranges. In these cases, the tabulations relied on supplemental information to assign an individual grade level for each child. Single year grade supplements relied on a child’s age as of Oct 1, 1999 and the modal age to grade assignment identified in the CPS October 1999 school enrollment supplement. These individual grade assignments were constrained to grade levels identified in the original questionnaire response. Therefore, if a child responded as enrolled in Grades 1 to 4, the supplemental grade assignment was limited to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade. These grade level assignments were then compared with district grade spans to determine the child’s relevant district.

 

Location of Child’s Residence Relative to School District Boundary

The SDST assigns a child to a school district based on place of residence, not place of attendance. Children who attend school outside of the district in which they reside will not be counted in their attending district. This design will affect districts with students who participate in inter-district 'choice' plans, as well as districts with students attending private schools located outside the boundaries of the public school district. The 2000 School District Tabulation does not identify Charter school systems unless those systems were geographically defined and reported as a regular school system by a state. Similarly, SF3-SDST does not provide information for individual school attendance areas, except in those default cases where the school district is comprised of a single school.

 

District Grade Span

The Census Bureau updates boundaries for Elementary, Secondary, and Unified school districts, but it does not require these districts to fit a specific grade span, nor does it require states to report grade spans as part of the district boundary update program. Therefore, SF3-SDST relies on school district grade spans reported by states to the National Center for Education Statistics for the 1999-2000 Common Core of Data (CCD). The Common Core of Data identifies the administrative universe of public school districts in the U.S., and it identifies the lowest and highest grades served by each district. Grades may range from Pre-Kindergarten (PK) to Grade 12. The district grade range reported in CCD may be adjusted in some cases when alternate grade range information is verifiable (via phone calls or other direct communication). The grade range of an Elementary district may be augmented down to the 1 st grade and up no farther than 8th grade. The grade range of a Secondary district may be augmented up to 12th grade and down no farther than 7th grade. The grade range of a Unified district may be augmented up to 12th grade and down to 1st grade. In areas covered by Elementary districts but no overlapping Secondary districts, the Elementary district grade range is augmented to accommodate the secondary age students.

 

Most census blocks are part of a school district (or districts) that serves all grade levels. However, all grade levels may not be covered for all blocks. For example, a block may be covered by an Elementary district (grade span PK-6) and a Secondary district (grade span 8th -12th), but not be covered for the 7th grade. If a grade is not claimed by any district, it was assigned to the districts that were present in the following order of precedence: first to Unified District (if present), then to an Elementary (if present), and then to a Secondary district. If a grade was claimed by more than one district, that grade was assigned first to a Secondary district (if present), then to an Elementary district (if present), and then to a Unified district. School district grade spans were not automatically augmented to include Pre-kindergarten or Kindergarten. However, in a limited number of cases, the lower grade for a small number of districts was adjusted to include Pre-Kindergarten. These adjustments occurred after direct contact and confirmation with local districts.

 

Child-Specific Universes

SF3-SDST is geographically unique in that it provides SF3 population and housing data for school districts, but it is equally unique in that it iterates SF3 population and housing data for a variety of child-specific characteristics. The SDST could just as well be called the Census Children’s Tabulation because SF3-SDST provides the largest single source of children’s demographic characteristics developed from the 2000 Census. These child-oriented iterations are composed of two components: Record Types and Enrollment iterations. These components are combined with geographic area selections and default, table-specific universe restrictions to create a remarkably flexible and wide-ranging set of child-specific universes. (Table-specific universe restrictions are identified in the Data Dictionary). Unlike SF3 where a table is tabulated once per geography, the 2000 School District Tabulation allows the SF3 table to be tabulated multiple times per geography – once for each appropriate Record Type and Enrollment combination.

 

Record Types

The 1990 school district tabulation used the term ‘record type’ to refer to one of the primary components of the tabulation universes. This concept was retained in 2000 for continuity. The term originally referred to characteristics of Census unit records (e.g., housing unit records or person records) and was applied to the 1990 special tabulation because of the unique record subset requirements. The 2000 SF3-SDST record types remain subsets of population and housing unit records, and they are the primary feature for narrowing the unit of analysis. They include:

 

1. Total – Population and Households (TT)

2. Children (CO)

3. Households with Children (HC)

4. Parents with Children (PC)

5. Children – by Household Characteristic (CH)

6. Children – by Parent Characteristic (CP)

 

Each of these record types (except for Total Population and Housing) provides a unique facet of children’s demographics (either children’s own characteristics, or their households and parents). The first four record types (TT, CO, HC, and PC) are simply subsets of Census person or housing unit records. The remaining record types (CH and CP) offer a slight twist on this arrangement by substituting children as the primary unit of analysis (number of children by household characteristics and number of children by parent characteristics) instead of using the standard unit of analysis (number of households with children or number of parents with children). These record types rely on the same set of population and housing tables used for HC and PC, but they report results in units of children rather than units of households and parents. Each of the record types is discussed below.

 

Total – Population and Housing (TT)

The total population and households record type does not include any child-specific modifications and, as a result, is identical to SF3. The only difference is that the SF3-SDST tabulates the standard SF3 tables for school district geography.

 

Children (CO)

This record type identifies children’s own characteristics as opposed to those of the total population. Consideration is limited to children (persons age 0-17 and those age 18-19 who are not high school graduates). This record type is designed to answer the question, "How many children have a given characteristic?"

 

Households with Children (HC)

This record type is a subset of total households. Any household that includes at least one child is identified as a household with children. This includes a number of prominent subgroups: householders with related children, households with foster children, households with children living with siblings or grandparents, households where children over 15 serve as the householder, and other possible circumstances. This record type is designed to answer the question, "How many households with a given characteristic have children in them?"

 

Parents with Children (PC)

This record type is a subset of the total population. It includes householders with related children, spouses of householders with related children, parents of children in subfamilies, and householders who are qualified children with parents living in the household. It does not include householders with unrelated foster children. This record type is designed to answer the question, "How many parents with a given characteristic have children?"

 

Children – by Household Characteristic (CH)

This record type identifies the number of children living in households with a given characteristic. The relationship requirements are the same as those in the Household with Children (HC) record type, but the result identifies units of children rather than households. Characteristics of households are counted for each applicable child in the household. In other words, a household with three children would be counted three times. As with the HC record type, data for CH do not include children living in Group Quarters (a non-household arrangement). This Record Type is designed to answer the question, "How many children live in a household that has a given characteristic?"

 

Children – by Parent Characteristic (CP)

This record type identifies the number of children living with a parent that has a given characteristic. The relationship requirements are the same as those in the Parents with Children (PC) record type, but the result identifies units of children rather than parents. Characteristics of each qualified parent are counted for each applicable child in the household. This allows a single child to be counted twice in given table. This record type is designed to answer the basic question, "How many children are living with parents that have a given characteristic?"

 

Enrollment Categories/Iterations

The second selection component of the SF3-SDST child-oriented universes is a set of enrollment categories. The iterations identify three subsets of children. First, they offer a distinction between total children and relevant children. This distinction is pertinent to Elementary and Secondary school districts that may have overlapping geography. In these cases, the enrollment categories allow the selection of all children residing within the district boundaries or the selection of all children for whom the district is responsible. This distinction is unnecessary for Unified School Districts and for other non-district geographies (U.S., American Indian Areas, State, and County). Second, the enrollment categories offer a distinction between children who are enrolled in school and those who are not. Third, for children who are enrolled, the enrollment categories offer a final distinction between those children enrolled in Public schools and those enrolled in Private schools. As mentioned earlier, these distinctions are based on a child’s place of residence. Actual school attendance (public or private) may be outside the area of residence. The enrollment categories include:

 

1. Total Children

2. Relevant Children – (Enrolled and Not Enrolled)

3. Relevant Children – Not Enrolled

4. Relevant Children – Enrolled

5. Relevant Children – Enrolled Public

6. Relevant Children – Enrolled Private

 

SF3-SDST provides each of the enrollment categories for each of the five child-oriented record types. For example, SF3-SDST include full iterations for Households with Children (relevant or not relevant), Households with Relevant Children (enrolled or not enrolled), Households with Non-enrolled Children, Households with Enrolled Children, Households with Enrolled Children in Public schools, and Households with Enrolled Children in Private schools. The interaction of these components (five record types and six enrollment categories) allows for 30 child-specific universe iterations.

 

Four Part Universe

SF3-SDST universes are an amalgam of four components. Three are selectable (discussed in prior sections), and one is not. The first component is the geographic selection. This includes identification of a basic type of geography (the U.S., American Indian areas, State, County, School District – Elementary, School District – Secondary, and School District – Unified) as well as a specific area within this type. The second component is the record type selection. This narrows the universe consideration to the total population, children, parents, or households. If the second selection involves child-oriented record types (all except TT), the third component then involves an enrollment category selection. This selection further narrows the child-specific universe by distinguishing relevancy, enrollment, and school type (if enrolled). The fourth and final component of the universe selection involves table-specific universe definitions included with each population and housing table. These table-specific universe definitions are the original universe restrictions designed for SF3. The 2000 School District Tabulation preserves the universe definitions designed for the population and housing tables, and then adds additional universe restrictions based on record type and enrollment category selections. For example, if the record type is ‘Households with Children’ and the enrollment category is ‘Relevant Children – Enrolled Public’ and the table-specific universe is ‘Total Families’ (a subset of Households), then the final universe would be families with children who are relevant and enrolled in public school. This four-part combination – geography, record type, enrollment category, and table specific universe restrictions – determines an SF3-SDST universe.

 

At-Risk Subject Matter Tables

SF3-SDST provides data for school district geography and it offers unique child-oriented universes, but the subject matter is based almost entirely on the standard population and housing tables designed for SF3. One exception to this general rule is a series of supplemental tables specifically designed for the SF3-SDST to identify At-Risk children – children who are living with a mother who is (1) not a high school graduate, (2) is single, divorced, or separated, and (3) whose 1999 income was below the poverty level. Some At-Risk tables also differentiate children and mothers by age group. The tables are similar to those designed for the 1990 school district special tabulation.

 

Suppression and Disclosure Avoidance

As a special tabulation of Census 2000, SF3-SDST data are subject to two disclosure avoidance features. First, presentation of a SF3-SDST table for any child oriented record type (all types except Total Population and Housing) is subject to a population threshold of 50 children (unweighted cases) in the geography being tabulated. In short, if school district XX has only 49 children (unweighted cases), the iteration tables will not appear for that district. Second, each cell value in the special tabulation files is independently rounded. The most noteworthy feature of this rounding requirement is that resulting tables lack additivity. In the cell rounding process 0 remains 0, 1-7 rounds to 4, 8 or greater rounds to the nearest multiple of 5. All totals, subtotals, and derived measures were computed prior to rounding and independent cell rounding.

 

Data Format and Access

SF3-SDST data are available as dbase structured files from Proximity. The data are also available via Proximity's transportable Web Server facilities.

 


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