IES Blog

Data from two recent NCES reports—the Condition of Education and the Digest of Education Statistics—show that student homelessness is a challenge in many different types of communities.

In 2014-15, the rate of homelessness among U.S. public school students was highest in city school districts at 3.7 percent, but was also 2.0 percent or higher in suburban, town, and rural districts. While suburban districts had the lowest rate of student homelessness, they still enrolled 422,000 homeless students, second only to the 578,000 homeless students enrolled in city districts. Smaller numbers of homeless students were enrolled in rural (149,000) and town (139,000) districts.

Figure 1. Percentage of public school students who were identified as homeless, by school district locale: School year 2014–15

NOTE: Homeless students are defined as children/youth who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. For more information, see "C118 - Homeless Students Enrolled" at https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/edfacts/sy-14-15-nonxml.html. Data include all homeless students enrolled at any time during the school year. Data exclude Puerto Rico and the Bureau of Indian Education.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, EDFacts file 118, Data Group 655, extracted January 23, 2017, from the EDFacts Data Warehouse (internal U.S. Department of Education source). Common Core of Data (CCD), "Local Education Agency Universe Survey," 2014–15. See Digest of Education Statistics 2016, table 204.75b.

The majority of students experiencing homelessness (76 percent) were doubled up or sharing housing with other families due to loss of their own housing, economic hardship, or other reasons such as domestic violence. Seven percent were in hotels or motels; 14 percent were in shelters, transitional housing or awaiting foster care placement; and 3 percent were unsheltered.

The percentage of homeless students who were doubled up with other families ranged from 70 percent in city districts to 81 percent in rural districts. The percentage of homeless students who were housed in shelters was higher in city districts than in suburban, town, and rural districts. The percentages of homeless students who were unsheltered or living in hotels and motels varied less widely across district locale categories.

Figure 2. Percentage distribution of public school students who were identified as homeless, by primary nighttime residence and school district locale: School year 2014–15

¹Refers to temporarily sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or other reasons (such as domestic violence).
²Includes living in cars, parks, campgrounds, temporary trailers—including Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers—or abandoned buildings.
NOTE: Homeless students are defined as children/youth who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. For more information, see "C118 - Homeless Students Enrolled" at https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/edfacts/sy-14-15-nonxml.html. Data include all homeless students enrolled at any time during the school year. Data exclude Puerto Rico and the Bureau of Indian Education. This figure is based on state-level data.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, EDFacts file 118, Data Group 655, extracted January 23, 2017, from the EDFacts Data Warehouse (internal U.S. Department of Education source). Common Core of Data (CCD), "Local Education Agency Universe Survey," 2014–15. See Digest of Education Statistics 2016, table 204.75b.

The percentage of homeless students who were unaccompanied youth–meaning that they were not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian—was   highest in rural districts (9.3 percent) and lowest in suburban districts (6.9 percent). The percentage of homeless students who were English language learners was highest in urban districts (16.8 percent) and lowest in rural districts (5.9 percent), and the percentage who were migrant students was highest in town districts (3.4 percent) and lowest in urban districts (1.0 percent).

Data used in this analysis were collected under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. This legislation requires that school districts identify students experiencing homelessness and guarantees students’ right to enroll in public schools and access educational and transportation services. More information on this legislation and the U.S. Department of Education’s programs and resources focused on student homelessness can be found on the National Center for Homeless Education’s website.

States report aggregated data on homeless students to the U.S. Department of Education through the EDFacts collection. EDFacts covers all public school districts and provides a uniquely detailed view of student homelessness. The full data on student homelessness by school district locale is available in the Digest of Education Statistics. A broader analysis in the Condition of Education describes how student homelessness has changed over time and how it varies among states. You can view homeless student data for the 120 largest school districts here and download a dataset with information on all public school districts here.

By Amy Rathbun, AIR and Joel McFarland

Previous NCES research has shown that students with family risk factors tend to have lower average scores than their peers on academic assessments.^[1] Risk factors can include coming from a low-income family or single-parent household, not having a parent who completed high school, and living in a household where the primary language is not English. How common is it for children entering U.S. kindergartens to have certain types of family risk factors? And, how do children with risk factors at kindergarten entry perform on academic assessments compared to their peers?  A new spotlight from The Condition of Education 2017 helps to answer these questions.

The spotlight focuses on children experiencing two types of risk factors - living in poverty (i.e., in households with income below the federal poverty threshold) and not having a parent who completed high school, as well as the combination and lack of the two risk factors. Data come from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011). During the 2010–11 school year, 6 percent of first-time kindergartners had both risk factors , 18 percent had the single risk factor of living in poverty, and 2 percent had the single risk factor of not having a parent who completed high school. About 75 percent had neither of these two risk factors present during their kindergarten year.

By Peggy Carr, Acting Commissioner of NCES

I am pleased to announce the release of the 2017 Condition of Education, a Congressionally-mandated annual report summarizing the latest data on education in the United States. This report is designed to help policymakers and the public monitor educational progress. This year’s report includes 50 indicators on topics ranging from prekindergarten through postsecondary education, as well as labor force outcomes and international comparisons. 

The Condition includes an At a Glance section, which allows readers to quickly make comparisons within and across indicators, and a Highlights section, which captures a key finding or set of findings from each indicator. The report contains a Reader’s Guide, Glossary, and a Guide to Data Sources that provide additional information to help place the indicators in context. In addition, each indicator references the data tables that were used to produce the indicator, most of which are on the Digest of Education Statistics website.

In addition to the regularly-updated annual indicators, this year’s report highlights innovative data collections and analyses from across the Center with a series of spotlight indicators. Selected findings include:

• Student risk factors (poverty and low parent educational attainment) at kindergarten entry are associated with lower academic achievement in kindergarten through grade 3;
• 2.5 percent of students in U.S. public elementary and secondary schools were reported as homeless in 2014-15. The percentage of students reported as homeless ranged from 2.0 percent in suburban school districts to 2.4 percent in rural districts, 2.6 percent in town districts, and 3.7 percent in city districts;
• Among first-time college students in 2011-12, the percentage of students who were still enrolled or had graduated after 3 years was higher for students who began at 4-year institutions (80 percent) than for those who began at 2-year institutions (57 percent); and
• 16 percent of 25- to 64-year-olds who had not completed high school had one or more disabilities in 2015, compared to 4 percent of those who had completed a bachelor’s degree and 3 percent of those who had completed a master’s or higher degree. Adults with disabilities were far less likely to be employed and far more likely to not be in the labor force compared to their peers without disabilities. Among those who had obtained higher levels of education, the differences between adults with and without disabilities were smaller.

In addition, two indicators provide insights from the Center’s recent work on technology in education. The first previews key findings from the Center’s upcoming report, Student Access to Digital Learning Resources Outside of the Classroom. For example, the percent of students who use the Internet at home varied by parental education level in 2015, ranging from 42 percent for children whose parents had not completed high school to 71 percent for those whose parents had completed a bachelor’s or higher degree.  The second shows that in 2014 female students scored higher than male students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s 8th-grade Technology and Engineering Literacy assessment.

As new data are released, indicators will be updated and made available on the Condition of Education website. In addition, the Center produces a wide range of reports and datasets designed to help inform policymakers and the public. For more information on our latest activities and releases, please visit us online or follow us on Twitter and Facebook. You can also watch the video below for more information on the Condition of Education report.

By Grace Kena

The National Center for Education Statistics submits a report to Congress on the condition of education every year by June 1^st. The Condition of Education provides a comprehensive look at the state and progress of education in the United States. Although The Condition of Education was first produced in 1975, the origins of the report date back to the creation of the first federal department of education in 1867. Its first major publication, the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education, covered data for 1869-70. Today’s Condition of Education report is presented to Congress and the White House annually. In addition, the indicators are updated regularly online, with a convenient site designed for mobile devices. By visiting The Condition of Education website, you can access the latest indicators, download the full Congressional report for the current and prior years, and watch short videos about recent findings and highlights.

The Condition of Education covers early childhood through postbaccalaureate education, and addresses topics relevant to a broad spectrum of education stakeholders. The report contains text and graphics on dozens of educational indicators that describe student characteristics, participation in special programs, achievement, completion rates, as well as characteristics of teachers, schools, and colleges. Economic indicators show the success that students have in finding employment after their education, and present information on their earnings. In addition to core indicators of perennial interest and supplemental indicators on other special topics, the Condition features spotlight indicators with an in depth focus on emerging issues and new data. Taken together, these indicators provide valuable information about the progress of our education system in addressing such key policy concerns as improving graduation rates, closing gaps in student achievement, and promoting educational equity.

For more information and access to the indicators, see The Condition of Education 2016. You can also learn more about The Condition of Education in the video below, or see other videos on specific topics of interest on the NCES YouTube Channel.

This blog was originally posted on June 1, 2015 and was updated on May 26, 2016

By Grace Kena

In February 2014, President Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper. This effort was designed to promote opportunity for and to unlock the full potential of the nation’s young people, including boys and young men of color, with help from government agencies, community leaders, private philanthropies, and businesses. As part of this initiative, federal agencies were asked to improve the accessibility of data that highlight both the challenges and the accomplishments of young people in progressing through the education system and entering the labor force. These statistics provide a composite view of recent trends for males and females across a variety of key dimensions.

Academic performance gaps in learning behaviors, knowledge, and skills, among children in various racial/ethnic groups are found as early as infancy,[1] preschool, and kindergarten[2]. In addition, children from lower-income families tend to have poorer educational outcomes than their peers from more well- off families, and relatively high percentages of males and females of color live in poverty. The latest data show that among 12th graders, the average reading and mathematics assessment scores for Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native 12th-graders were lower than the average scores for their peers. In addition, the percentage of Hispanic 18- to 24-year-olds who had not completed high school was higher than the average percentage. The percentages of Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native young men in this age group who were enrolled in college were also lower than the average, and the percentages of Black and Hispanic young men ages 25–29 who had earned a bachelor’s or higher degree were lower than the average for young men in this age group.

On the other hand, young people are making progress in education. For example, average mathematics scores increased between 2005 and 2013 for all male students as well as for Black and Hispanic students overall. The percentage of males ages 18–24 who had not completed high school decreased from 2000 to 2014 for most racial/ethnic groups, and the decreases for Black and Hispanic young men were among the largest. In addition, the percentages of Black and Hispanic young men in this age group who were enrolled in college increased from 2000 to 2013.

Percentage of male 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in 2- and 4-year colleges, by race/ethnicity: 2000 and 2013

! Interpret data with caution. The coefficient of variation (CV) for this estimate is between 30 and 50 percent.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2013. 

More education data from the My Brother’s Keeper initiative can be found in the feature in The Condition of Education 2015, and on the My Brother’s Keeper data site. Information on changes to existing programs and the creation of new public-private partnerships designed to meet the needs of young people are available on the White House site. You can also learn more about the findings from the video below: