School Data Topics
Topical entry points into the PlainSchools dataset — pick the question you care about and we'll show you the relevant guide, ranking, and detail pages across states, districts, and individual schools.
School Funding & Spending
Per-pupil expenditure, revenue mix (federal/state/local), and Title I distributions.
Chronic Absenteeism
The share of students missing 10% or more of school days — a better outcome predictor than test scores.
School Discipline (CRDC)
Suspensions, expulsions, and referrals by school, ethnicity group, and disability status.
Student-Teacher Ratios
Enrollment divided by FTE teachers — context on class size across states.
AP & Gifted Programs
Advanced Placement course offerings and gifted-and-talented enrollment from CRDC.
Demographics & Ethnicity
Student body composition using NCES demographic categories.
Charter vs. Magnet vs. Traditional
Governance, admissions, and funding differences between school types.
Funding Equity
How evenly per-pupil spending is distributed across districts within each state.
Reading Test Score Data
What NCES test score figures actually measure — and what they don't.
Public vs. Private Schools
NCES-based comparison of enrollment, class size, teacher qualifications, and spending.
How Topics Map to the Data
Every topic page is backed by at least one primary federal dataset. Funding and spending topics draw from the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, the only annual census of public school-district budgets in the United States. Discipline and absenteeism topics draw from the biennial Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) 2021-22, a mandatory survey of every public school on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.
Enrollment, staffing, and demographic topics use the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 and the latest available NCES School Membership 2024-25 roster. Where two sources disagree — which is common for FTE teacher counts because CCD and CRDC collect on different timelines — we display the CCD figure on school profiles and the CRDC figure where it is uniquely relevant (for example, counselor and nurse staffing).
Rates and averages are computed at the finest geography with a reliable denominator. School-level averages require a non-suppressed enrollment figure; district-level averages require at least one member school with a valid report. We note the denominator on every ranking. See the full methodology for the complete computational rubric.