How PlainSchools builds each profile
PlainSchools is a federal-census workstation, not a ratings product. Every published figure traces to an NCES or OCR file you can re-download; this page names the surveys, the joins, and what the Resource Investment Index does (and refuses to claim).
Agencies report
State education agencies submit enrollment, staffing, and finance rows to NCES each year.
We pull the public files
CCD universe flat files, F-33 finance, and CRDC extracts come from the official public portals.
Join + place
Duplicate IDs are collapsed, schools attach to districts/counties/states, and ratios are computed only from reported numerators.
Publish with provenance
Each school and district page cites the survey vintage and links back to the methodology for every derived field.
Data Source
All data comes from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and related federal extracts. Enrollment, staffing, and free/reduced-lunch figures reflect the CCD Membership 2024-25 release. Counselor, gifted-program, and discipline fields are from CRDC 2021-22. Chronic absenteeism is from EDFacts 2021-22. District finance (per-pupil spending, revenue mix) is from the F-33 School District Finance Survey for FY2022-23. These releases are not simultaneous, composites that join them must disclose every vintage (see Resource Investment Index below). NCES operates under the U.S. Department of Education.
Three CCD / finance components:
- School-level universe files - Enrollment, grade range, school type, charter/magnet status, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility.
- Staff files - Teacher counts and student-teacher ratios.
- F-33 Finance Survey - District-level per-pupil expenditure and federal/state/local revenue breakdowns.
How we process the data
We take the NCES files and turn them into a single profile for each school and district:
- Read the federal files for the 2024–25 reporting year.
- Remove duplicate records, matching every school and district to its unique federal ID.
- Calculate student-teacher ratios from enrollment and staff counts.
- Add district finance data from the F-33 survey.
- Place each school within its district, county, and state.
Resource Investment Index
The Resource Investment Index is a composite score (0–100) that summarizes resource and support inputs reported in federal school data, not academic outcomes, test scores, or dollars allocated to an individual campus. It answers: "Where do this school's reported staffing and support inputs sit relative to its peers?"
CCD Membership 2024-25. Lower ratios score higher. Calibrated against the national average of ~16:1.
CRDC 2021-22. Presence of a gifted and talented program, indicating enrichment beyond standard curriculum.
CRDC 2021-22. Students per counselor. Benchmarked against the ASCA recommendation of 250:1.
EDFacts 2021-22 (also mirrored in CRDC extracts). Share of students missing 10%+ of school days. Lower rates score higher.
Each available factor is normalized (0–100), then averaged. An unreported factor is excluded rather than treated as zero. Population coupling: the index deliberately joins CCD 2024-25 staffing with CRDC/EDFacts 2021-22 program and attendance fields (2024-25 × 2021-22). Federal release lag makes a same-year four-factor composite unavailable; pages that publish the score must name both vintages, never stamp the composite as “CCD 2024-25” alone. Shared vintage constants and the enrichment rebuild keep those years coupled so published scores cannot drift apart. The school profile uses distribution-relative bands from the current national score distribution: Higher (49+), Typical (32–48), and Lower (below 32). These are resource-input bands, not academic letter grades. Schools with fewer than three available indicators receive a partial-data note.
What the index does not measure: Standardized test scores, graduation rates, college readiness, parent satisfaction, or teacher quality. It measures resource inputs - staffing, programs, and support services. A high Resource Investment Index does not guarantee strong academic outcomes. Use this index alongside the raw metrics on each school page.
Equity indicators
Federal measurements, not ratings, surface the resource and opportunity picture on each school page: economic need (free/reduced-price lunch eligibility), staffing depth (student-teacher ratio), engagement (chronic absenteeism), and funding equity (district per-pupil spending vs. state/national averages). These are the indicators researchers, civil-rights monitors, and funding formulas use to assess equity; none of them is an academic-quality verdict.
Diversity index
The student-body diversity index is a Simpson diversity index computed from the NCES race and ethnicity shares reported for each school, scaled 0-100. A score of 0 means one group makes up the whole student body; a higher score means enrollment is more evenly mixed across groups. It measures the composition of the student body, not academic quality or outcomes.
Data Vintage & Collection
Enrollment, staffing, and free/reduced-lunch figures reflect CCD Membership 2024-25. Counselor, gifted-program, and related CRDC fields are 2021-22. Chronic absenteeism is EDFacts 2021-22. District finance figures (per-pupil spending, revenue mix) are from the F-33 School District Finance Survey for FY2022-23, the most recent year NCES has published in this pipeline. The Resource Investment Index joins the CCD and CRDC/EDFacts vintages on purpose (2024-25 × 2021-22) and discloses that fold wherever the score is published. NCES releases updated CCD data annually, typically in late fall. We update our database when new data becomes available. Between releases, school openings, closures, and staffing changes are not reflected in our data. NCES collects CCD data annually from state education agencies, who compile it from local education agencies in their state. Every public school and school district in the United States is required to report enrollment, staffing, and operational data. NCES applies quality control checks, imputation for missing values, and validation before publishing the final CCD files, making it the most comprehensive and authoritative inventory of American public education.
Update Schedule
NCES releases updated CCD data annually, typically in late fall for the prior school year. The F-33 Finance Survey is released on a slightly longer timeline. We process and publish updates when new CCD files become available.
Corrections & changelog
If a figure on PlainSchools looks wrong, use report a data error with the page URL, the field, and an official source citation. We verify reports against the named federal extract, aim to reply within 72 business hours, and log material publisher-side fixes on the data & editorial changelog. Upstream agency revisions land on the next source refresh, not by inventing a local override. Full process: editorial corrections policy.
All Federal Data Sources We Use
Every figure on a school, district, city, or state page traces to one of these six federal sources:
- NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) - universe of U.S. public schools and districts. nces.ed.gov/ccd
- NCES Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) - discipline, absenteeism, and AP-course participation. ocrdata.ed.gov
- NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey - per-pupil expenditure and revenue sources. nces.ed.gov/ccd/f33agency
- USDA National School Lunch Program (NSLP) - free and reduced-price lunch eligibility. fns.usda.gov/nslp
- U.S. Census Bureau ACS - demographic and socioeconomic context for school catchment areas. census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
- U.S. Department of Education ESSA Title I - federal Title I program participation. ed.gov
Limitations
- Smaller or newly opened schools may have incomplete records in NCES files.
- Finance data is reported at the district level, per-school spending is not available in CCD.
- Demographic data uses CCD ethnicity categories as reported by each district to NCES.
- Private schools are not included; CCD covers public schools only.
- Student-teacher ratios are computed from headcount data and do not account for part-time teachers, specialists, or instructional aides.
- Free and reduced-price lunch eligibility is an imperfect proxy for economic disadvantage.
Verify the Data Yourself
Every school page links directly to its NCES source record. Visit NCES CCD School Search, enter the 12-digit NCES ID shown on any profile, and compare the federal record to what we display. If you find a discrepancy, let us know - we correct errors against the source within one business day.
Not Affiliated
PlainSchools is not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education, NCES, or any government agency. We are an independent data portal providing public information in a more accessible format.
Download the compiled NCES state extract: plainschools-state-summary.csv (same extract as /statistics).