NCES Blog

NCES is pleased to present the 2021 edition of the Condition of Education, an annual report mandated by the U.S. Congress that summarizes the latest data on education in the United States. This report uses data from across the center and from other sources and is designed to help policymakers and the public monitor educational progress.

Beginning in 2021, individual indicators can be accessed online on the newly redesigned Condition of Education Indicator System website. A synthesis of key findings from these indicators can be found in the Report on the Condition of Education, a more user-friendly PDF report.

A total of 86 indicators are included in this year’s Condition of Education, 55 of which were updated this year. As in prior years, these indicators present a range of topics from prekindergarten through postsecondary education, as well as labor force outcomes and international comparisons. Additionally, this year’s 55 updated indicators include 17 indicators on school crime and safety.

For the 2021 edition of the Condition of Education, most data were collected prior to 2020, either during the 2018–19 academic year or in fall 2019. Therefore, with some exceptions, this year’s report presents findings from prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

At the elementary and secondary level (prekindergarten through grade 12), the data show that 50.7 million students were enrolled in public schools fall 2018, the most recent year for which data were available at the time this report was written. Public charter school enrollment accounted for 7 percent (3.3 million students) of these public school enrollments, more than doubling from 3 percent (1.6 million students) in 2009. In 2019, U.S. 4th- and 8th-grade students scored above the scale centerpoint (500 out of 1000) on both the math and science assessments in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

In 2020, 95 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds had at least a high school diploma or equivalent, while 39 percent had a bachelor’s or higher degree. These levels of educational attainment are associated with economic outcomes, such as employment and earnings. For example, among those working full time, year round, annual median earnings in 2019 were 59 percent higher for 25- to 34-year-olds with a bachelor’s or higher degree than for those with a high school diploma or equivalent.

In addition to regularly updated annual indicators, this year’s two spotlight indicators highlight early findings on the educational impact of the coronavirus pandemic from the Household Pulse Survey (HPS).

• The first spotlight examines distance learning at the elementary and secondary level at the beginning of the 2020–21 academic year. Overall, among adults with children under 18 in the home enrolled in school, two-thirds reported in September 2020 that classes had been moved to a distance learning format using online resources. In order to participate in these remote learning settings, students must have access to computers and the internet. More than 90 percent of adults with children in their household reported that one or both of these resources were always or usually available to children for educational purposes in September 2020. At the same time, 59 percent of adults reported that computers were provided by the child’s school or district, while 4 percent reported that internet access was paid for by the child’s school or district. Although higher percentages of lower income adults reported such assistance, this did not eliminate inequalities in access to these resources by household income.

• The second spotlight examines changes in postsecondary education plans for fall 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Among adults 18 years old and over who had household members planning to take classes in fall 2020 from a postsecondary institution, 45 percent reported that the classes at least one household member planned would be in different formats in the fall (e.g., formats would change from in-person to online), 31 percent reported that all plans to take classes in the fall had been canceled for at least one household member, and 12 percent reported that at least one household member would take fewer classes in the fall. Some 28 percent reported no change in fall plans to take postsecondary classes for at least one household member. The two most frequently cited reasons for the cancellation of plans were having the coronavirus or having concerns about getting the coronavirus (46 percent), followed by not being able to pay for classes/educational expenses because of changes to income from the pandemic (42 percent).

The Condition of Education also includes an At a Glance section, a Reader’s Guide, a Glossary, and a Guide to Sources, all of which provide additional background information. Each indicator includes references to the source data tables used to produce the indicator.

As new data are released throughout the year, indicators will be updated and made available online.

In addition to publishing the Condition of Education, NCES produces a wide range of other reports and datasets designed to help inform policymakers and the public about significant trends and topics in education. More information about the latest activities and releases at NCES may be found on our website or by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

By James L. Woodworth, NCES Commissioner

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which celebrates the achievements of Asian/Pacific Islander Americans and immigrants and the many ways they have contributed to the United States.

In honor of Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander¹ educators who help students learn every day, here are some selected facts and figures from the 2017–18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). The NTPS collects data about public and private K–12 schools in the United States from the perspective of the teachers and principals who staff them. These data were collected in 2017–18, prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Composition of U.S. K–12 Public and Private Schools: 2017–18

• In fall 2017, 5 percent of all K–12 public school students were Asian and less than 1 percent were Pacific Islander. Six percent of all K–12 private school students were Asian and 1 percent were Pacific Islander.

• A higher percentage of private school teachers than of public school teachers were Asian (2.7 vs. 2.1 percent) (figure 1). Similarly, Asian principals comprised 1.9 percent of all private school principals but 0.9 percent of all public school principals.

• Although Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander teachers and principals are important members of school communities, they comprise a relatively small percentage of public and private school educators overall. Less than 1 percent of either public or private school teachers (0.2 and 0.1 percent,² respectively) and principals (0.2 percent and 0.3 percent,³ respectively) were Native Hawaiian/Pacific islander.

Figure 1. Percentage distribution of all teachers and principals who are Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, by school type: 2017–18

! Interpret data with caution. The coefficient of variation (CV) for this estimate is between 30 and 50 percent.
NOTE: Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), "Public School Teacher and Private School Teacher Data File, Public School Principal and Private School Principal Data File," 2017–18

Community and K–12 School Characteristics: 2017–18

• A higher percentage of Asian teachers worked in city schools than in most other community types (i.e., suburb, town, and rural) in 2017–18. There were some differences by school type (i.e., public vs. private).⁴ For example, teacher employment patterns in both school types were similar at rural schools and city schools but different at suburban schools.

• Higher percentages of Asian teachers worked in both public and private city schools (3.1 and 3.8 percent, respectively) than in public and private rural schools (0.5 and 0.8 percent, respectively) (figure 2).

• Although a lower percentage of Asian private school teachers worked in suburban schools (2.3 percent) than in city schools (3.8 percent), there was no significant difference in the percentage of Asian public school teachers who worked in suburban versus city schools.

Figure 2. Percentage distribution of all teachers who are Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, by school type and community type: 2017–18

# Rounds to zero
! Interpret data with caution. The coefficient of variation (CV) for this estimate is between 30 and 50 percent.
‡ Reporting standards not met. The coefficient of variation (CV) for this estimate is 50 percent or greater (i.e., the standard error is 50 percent or more of the estimate) or the response rate is below 50 percent.
NOTE: Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), "Public School Teacher and Private School Teacher Data File," 2017–18

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, NCES would like to thank Asian and Pacific Islander educators nationwide who play vital roles in our education system.

The data in this blog would not be possible without the participation of teachers, principals, and school staff in the NTPS. We are currently conducting the 2020–21 NTPS to learn more about teaching experiences during the pandemic. If you were contacted about participating in the 2020–21 NTPS and have questions, please email ntps@census.gov or call 1-888-595-1338.

For more information about the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), please visit https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/. More findings and details are available in the NTPS school, teacher, and principal reports.

With the sudden changes in education due to the coronavirus pandemic, virtual instruction is in the spotlight more than ever before. Prior to the pandemic, there were already increasing numbers of virtual public schools that offered instructional programs to those that may have difficulty accessing or attending traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Even before the pandemic, some schools and districts were using virtual instruction in new ways, such as switching to virtual instruction on snow days rather than cancelling school. Throughout the pandemic, schools and districts have been relying more heavily on virtual instruction than ever before.

Since school year (SY) 2013–14, the Common Core of Data (CCD) has included a school-level virtual status flag, which has changed over time. For SY 2020–21, the Department of Education instructed states to classify schools that are normally brick-and-mortar schools but are operating remotely during the pandemic as supplemental virtual (see table below).

SY 2013–14 Through SY 2015–16

Virtual status is a Yes/No flag, meaning that a school was either virtual or not virtual based on the following definition: “A public school that offers only instruction in which students and teachers are separated by time and/or location, and interaction occurs via computers and/or telecommunications technologies. A virtual school generally does not have a physical facility that allows students to attend classes on site.”

SY 2016–17 and Onward

NCES changed the virtual status flag to be more nuanced. Rather than just a Yes/No flag, the reported value indicates virtual status on a spectrum using the following values:

Generally, data users should treat the value “FULLVIRTUAL” (exclusively virtual) under the new approach as the equivalent of Virtual=Yes in the old approach. The virtual flag is a status assigned to a school as of October 1 each school year. 

The number of exclusively virtual schools has increased in the past several years. In SY 2013–14, there were a total of 478 exclusively virtual schools reported in CCD (approximately 0.5% of all operational schools). In SY 2019–20 there were 691 schools (approximately 0.7% of all operational schools) that were exclusively virtual. The student enrollment in exclusively virtual schools also increased from 199,815 students in SY 2013–14 to 293,717 in SY 2019–20, which is an increase from 0.4% of the total student enrollment in public schools to 0.6%.

Of the 691 virtual schools in SY 2019–20, 590 were reported as “regular” schools, meaning they offered a general academic curriculum rather than one focused on special needs or vocational education, 218 were charter schools, and 289 were high schools. Of the 8,673 schools that were reported as either primary virtual or supplemental virtual, 7,727 were regular schools, 624 were charter schools, and 4,098 were high schools.

To see tables summarizing the above data, visit our Data Tables web page and select the nonfiscal tables.

To learn more about the CCD, visit our web page. For more information about how to access CCD data, including tips for using the District and School Locators and the Elementary and Secondary Information System, read the blog post “Accessing the Common Core of Data (CCD).” You can also access the raw data files for additional information about public elementary and secondary schools. Enrollment and staff data for SY 2020–21 are currently being collected, processed, and verified and could be released by spring 2022.

By Patrick Keaton, NCES

NCES annually publishes comprehensive data on the finances of public elementary and secondary schools through the Common Core of Data (CCD). For many years, these data have been released at the state level through the National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) and at the school district level through the Local Education Agency (School District) Finance Survey (F-33).

Policymakers, researchers, and the public have long voiced concerns about the equitable distribution of school funding within and across districts. School-level finance data provide reliable and unbiased measures that can be utilized to compare how resources are distributed among schools within districts.

Education spending data are now available for 15 states^[1] at the school level through the School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS), which NCES has been conducting annually since 2014.^[2] In November 2018, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved changes to the SLFS wherein variables have been added to make the SLFS directly analogous to the F-33 Survey and to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provisions on reporting expenditures per pupil at the school and district levels.

Below are some key findings from the recently released NCES report Highlights of School-Level Finance Data: Selected Findings From the School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS) School Years 2015–16 (FY 16) and 2016–17 (FY 17).

Eight of the 15 states participating in the SLFS are able to report school-level expenditure data requested by the survey for a high percentage of their schools.

The initial years of the SLFS have consistently demonstrated that most states can report detailed school‑level spending data for the vast majority of their schools. In school year (SY) 2016–17 (FY 2017), most states participating in the SLFS (8 out of 15) reported school-level finance data for at least 95 percent of their schools (figure 1). With the exception of New Jersey,^[3] all states were able to report at least partial SLFS finance data for more than 78 percent of their schools, ranging from 79 percent of schools in Colorado to 99 percent of schools in Oklahoma. In addition, the percentage of students covered by SLFS reporting was more than 99 percent in 9 of the 15 participating states. 

Figure 1. Percentage of students covered and percentage of schools with fiscal data reported in the School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS), by participating state: FY 2017

By Stephen Cornman, NCES

Have you explored the recently released Digest of Education Statistics 2019? The Digest is a great resource for education data on a range of topics from a variety of sources. Because of the report’s size (the 2019 edition has more than 700 tables across 7 chapters), it can sometimes be a bit tricky to find the data you need. Read on to discover some tips for navigating the Digest website.

Finding the Most Recent Versions of Tables

There are several ways to find the most recent version of a table, depending on what page you are on. From the Digest landing page, click on “Most Current Digest Tables” (figure 1). From the list of tables page for a specific year, use the drop-down menu to select “Current” (figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

• Tip: If you navigate to a table from a search engine, you may not be on the most recent year. Check for a “Click here for the latest version of this table” option in the top righthand corner of the table’s page.

Finding Tables Using the Digest Indexing System

Have you ever navigated to a Digest table from a search engine or another NCES report and wanted to find other similar tables? What should you do if a Digest table covers a topic you want to learn about but does not include the specific data you need? You can use the Digest indexing system to find other similar tables.

The Digest indexing system is based on numbered chapters and topical subsections. Each table identifier contains the chapter number (1 through 7) followed by the subsection (e.g., 01, 02, 03) and the table number after the period (e.g., .10, .20, .30). For example, table 601.10 is the first table in chapter 6 under “Population, Enrollment, and Teachers,” which is subsection 01 (figure 3).

Figure 3

To find tables similar to the one you have found already, click on the link at the top left of the table’s page, which will take you to a full list of tables for the Digest edition you are viewing. For example, a Digest 2019 table will feature a “2019 Tables and Figures” link at the top left of the table (figure 4).

Figure 4

From here you can navigate to the relevant chapter and subsection using the indexing system. For example, if you were viewing table 601.10 and wanted to find other similar tables, you would click the + sign next to “Chapter 6. International Comparisons of Education” and then click the + next to “601 Population, Enrollment, and Teachers” (figure 5). You can then click through and explore all the relevant tables in that subsection.

Figure 5

• Tip: Use the radio buttons at the top right to toggle between viewing tables and figures.
• Tip: Use Ctrl + click to open tables in a new tab to avoid losing your place on the page.

If you do not see a table with the information you need, remember that the SOURCE note of a Digest table can be a great way to find related resources. Scroll to the bottom of a table to find the data sources used to prepare it.

Searching for Key Terms or Phrases Across All Tables

What if you want to search the Digest by topic instead of starting with a specific table? One easy way to do so is to navigate to the “List of 2019 Tables Page” and click “Show All” next to each chapter (figure 6).

• Tip: Start at chapter 7 and work your way up to avoid having to scroll.

Figure 6

Once the tables are displayed for each chapter, you can easily do a global search of the entire page (Ctrl + F) and search for the term or phrase of your choice.

• Tip: Try a few different search terms if you do not find what you are looking for right away. For example, the Digest uses the term “distance education” for remote learning.

Accessing Older Versions of Tables

In addition to the current edition of the report, the Digest website also contains archives of each report through 1990. You can access previous editions of the report in several ways (figure 7):

• Select a year from the drop-down menu to access the HMTL versions of that year’s tables.
• Click on “Access PDF versions of the Digest from 1990–2019” to access archived PDF files.
  • From here, you can click the + next to “Digest of Education Statistics” and select the report you want to view.

Figure 7

In addition to trying these tips for navigating the Digest website, you can explore the Reader’s Guide and Guide to Sources to learn more about the data sources used in the report. The Reader’s Guide also provides additional information about common measures and indexes, data analysis and interpretation, limitations of the data, and other aspects of the report. 

By Megan Barnett, AIR