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School District DecisionMaking Information Main Page |
Analysis of Poverty in School Districts New data on poverty in school districts from the Census 2000 School District Special Tabulation can help policy makers and leaders assess the effectiveness of the U.S. Department of Education Title I program. The Title I program, the largest Federal K-12 education program and the fourth largest formula grant of any kind, is intended to help schools educate poor and disadvantaged children. How does the distribution of funds line-up with need as measured by the incidence of poverty? These new data can help answer this question. At the local level, these data can help communities and school districts determine "where they stand" on the incidence of poverty in their school district(s) and how they compare to others. These data can be the basis for identifying the scope of problem or challenge and be used to assess change in poverty that has occurred over time. What the Data Tell Us. The Census 2000 School District Special Tabulation data are the most current poverty data for school districts. See this note on alternative measures and statistical reliability. Using these data, it can be determined that the median school district percent individuals below poverty level is 10.38 percent. The median school district percent families below poverty level is 7.5 percent. These data are derived from a "poverty incidence in school districts" file. Proximity has developed an extract file from the larger database enabling the look-up of a single school district, comparison of all school districts in the U.S. or a state, and related types of analyses. Acquire these data for your area by completing this form and check option 3. Indicate your state of interest in the comments section. Examine poverty-related characteristics of school districts using an Excel spreadsheet file containing the data shown in the table presented below. This table shows the data included in the Excel file for Chinle, AZ Unified School District. This district has the highest percent of families below poverty level of any school district in the U.S. with 20,000 population or more.
These data were taken from the Proximity school district demographic profile 3, containing a more extensive set of economic characteristics by school district. See http://proximityone.com/dp3.htm for a listing of these items in the context of related data available. Refer to http://www.proximityone.com/tier1gls.pdf for a glossary of terms. Alternative Measures and Statistical Reliability. Data on the number of students who participate in the free and reduced fee lunch program are tabulated annually for most school districts as a part of the NCES Common Core of Data program. These data provide a questionable measure of poverty, at best, and tend to deteriorate in adequacy to serve as a proxy measure for poverty incidence for the populations in middle and high school grades. The Census 2000 data on poverty are based on the sample, long-form questionnaire. As a result, these data are estimates and subject to sampling variability. The relative reliability of these data diminish as the size of the population in an area of tabulation becomes smaller. While tables showing the relative statistical reliability of the measure exist (standard error of estimate), data for districts with less than 4,000 population (order of magnitude) should be looked at more carefully than others. [Top] |
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