Volume 4, Number 6 June 2002

INSIDE THIS ISSUE E-Rate Update Rural Nebraskans Support Their Schools New Reports Provide Education Data Vermont School Choice Experiment May Negatively Affect Rural Schools and Communities Census Shows Gaps Between Rural, Urban Matters of Fact About RPM RPM Archives

New Reports Provide Education Data

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has recently released several new reports on elementary/secondary education statistics. Each of the reports is available through the NCES website.

Digest of Education Statistics, 2001 provides a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of education from pre-kindergarten through graduate school. 430 tables are available to view on the web, or they can be downloaded as Excel, Lotus or PDF files. Among the statistics included:

• 26.3% of U.S. public schools are located in rural places and enroll 17.2% of all public students. Rural schools make up the largest proportion of public schools in the U.S.
• 38.4% of school districts have enrollments of less than 599 students and enroll 6.1% of U.S. public school students. 1.6% of school districts have enrollments of more than 25,000 students and enroll 32.1% of U.S. public school students.
• 52% of rural schools report having at least one, less-than-adequate building feature. 70% of rural schools need to spend money to bring their buildings into good overall condition.
• 8% of rural public schools reported a serious violent crime, compared to 17% of urban schools.

Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000 provides national data on arts education in public elementary and secondary schools for the 1999-2000 school year. Among the findings: rural schools are the least likely to offer music (87% offer music classes), visual arts (87% offer visual arts), dance (6% offer dance), or drama (37%offer drama). The report is currently only available online and is located at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002131.

The Nation's Report Card: U.S. History 2001 presents the results of the 2001 assessment in U.S. history public school courses from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Among the findings: at grades 4 and 8, students attending schools in rural and urban fringe locations had higher average scores than students in central city schools. At grade 12, students attending schools in urban fringe locations had higher scores than students in both rural and central city locations. For more information, visit http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ushistory/results/ or call 1.877.4ED.Pubs.

Public High School Dropouts and Completers From the Common Core of Data: School Years 1991-92 through 1997-98 presents dropout and four-year high school completion rates by state. Dropout and completion rate data are broken out by state, race/ethnicity, grade, and locale. Among the findings: of the states that reported dropout rates in 1997-98, Kentucky had the highest rural dropout rate at 9.9% and Wisconsin had the lowest rate at 1.3%. In general, students in rural districts are less likely to drop out than are their peers in large or mid-size cities. The full report is currently only available online at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002317.

Early Estimates of Public Elementary and Secondary Education Statistics: School Year 2001-2002 provides information on the number of students in enrollment, teachers, high school graduates and total revenues and expenditures. This report, which does not contain rural-specific information, is only available online and can be downloaded at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002311.

Statistics in Brief: Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 1999-2000 contains basic revenue and expenditure data, by state, for public elementary and secondary education for school year 1999-2000. The report, which does not contain rural-specific information, is only available online and can be downloaded at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002311.

Financing Elementary and Secondary Education in the States: 1997-98 presents state-level analyses of revenues and expenditures for the 1997-98 school year and includes information on capital and facilities spending by state. The report is only available online at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002319.