Civil Rights Stats on Public Schools

I missed this but in June, the US Department of Education released data on disparities in education resources and opportunities for U.S. public ed students.   It is called the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) and covers about 7,000 school districts.  There are two parts.   Part 1 was released in June and covered primarily enrollment data and part 2, which will be released this fall, collected cumulative and end-of-year data. 

Part 1 covers:

• access to the rigorous sequence of college and career-ready math and science courses, 
• the number of first and second-year teachers in schools, 
• the number of high school counselors in schools, 
• availability of pre-K and kindergarten programs, 
• districts operating under desegregation orders or plans, and 
• whether districts have written policies prohibiting harassment and bullying on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or disability.

Part 2 will cover;

• numbers of students passing algebra, 
• taking AP tests, and passing AP tests; 
• significantly expanded discipline data; 
• data on restraint and seclusion; 
• retention data by grade; 
• teacher absenteeism rates; 
• school funding data; 
• and data on incidents of harassment and bullying.

Additionally it will highlight whether certain groups of students are being disciplined more harshly or more often than other groups, and whether all groups are equally likely to be taking the SAT or ACT—the tests most likely to help them enter college.

Part 1 data is available at this link.  It makes for interesting reading (although I only found district data and not school data).  Also, they had a link under "Downloads" with definitions of many terms used by the feds about education.