About the Data

The Civil Rights Data Collection in the U.S. Department of Education (previously the Elementary and Secondary School Survey) is used by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to obtain data regarding access to elementary and secondary schools and to programs or services within those schools. This Web site contains Civil Rights Data Collection data for the 2004-2005 school year (2004 Civil Rights Data Collection). We encourage you to complete the Web site tutorial on how to select which data you want, customize its presentation, and save it in a file.

In order to understand the data clearly, it is important for you to be familiar with the definitions used. There are minor differences in definitions in some data items between the 2004 Civil Rights Data Collection and previous surveys. Most differences in definitions are minor; others are more substantive.

The Common Core of Data (CCD) database maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education is used as the universe for identifying public school districts for participation in the Survey. Sampling methodology is a statistical process that is used on a state by state basis to ensure that a representative sample of school districts is included in each state sample. Representative sampling ensures a balance between five different sizes of school districts; i.e., 1-300 students, 301-1,500 students, 1,501-3,000 students, 3,001-5,000 students, and 5,001-25,000 students. For this reason, some districts in some size "strata" in some states may have a higher probability of being sampled frequently, in order to provide appropriate data in each size stratum to ensure a representative, accurate set of statewide projections. Additionally, the following types of districts are sampled with certainty in every Survey cycle: districts having more than 25,000 students; all districts in states having 25 or fewer public school districts; and districts subject to, or recently released from, a Federal Court Order and monitored by the U.S. Justice Department.

The sample for the 2004 Civil Rights Data Collection included 6,002 public school districts and 62,920 schools in those school districts. Reported data, from those districts that responded to the survey, was used to generate projected national and state data.

The state and national projections were prepared for OCR in accordance with the sampling methodology for the Civil Rights Data Collection. Documentation is available from OCR which describes the procedures used for the projections, including weighting of the sample, imputation for non-response, standard errors, quality control procedures, and projections for which non-response rate is more than 10% but not greater than 20%. In addition, documentation is available from OCR for projections that should be used with caution due to large statistical uncertainty in the estimate, including factors which contributed to the extent of this statistical uncertainty for the 2004 Civil Rights Data Collection. This hardcopy documentation, available upon request, is contained in "2004 Office for Civil Rights Elementary and Secondary School Survey Projections and Documentation".