Data Adjustments and Notes

  • NOTES ON NON-TRADITIONAL STATES AND DISTRICTS:
    To be consistent with the tabulations of CCD data reported by NCES, Bento’s dashboard does not include any data for the island territories, the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), and the Department of Defense Education Agency (DoDEA). Data are not reported at the state level for this territories in Bento and data from these territories are not included in any national totals.
     
  • CALCULATING "TOTAL DISTRICTS/LEAs":
    “Total districts/LEAs” excludes any LEAs reported by the island territories, Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), and the Department of Defense Education Agency (DoDEA).
     
  • NEW YORK CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT:
    • Prior to SY 2005–06, New York City (NYC) schools were reported as part of a single, regular LEA. In SY 2005–06, New York began reporting NYC schools as part of a supervisory union with 33-member LEAs. NCES continues to report NYC schools as a single LEA. However, in CCD data files, the New York City schools continue to appear in the supervisory union configuration with 33-member LEAs.
    • Bento displays New York City as a single LEA to match how NCES reports New York City data.  The New York City Department of Education provided aggregated data across the city for high school graduation rate, state test data, and all demographic data. Source: http://schools.nyc.gov/default.htm
       
  • DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (DC) STATE- AND DISTRICT-LEVEL DATA:
    For all education outcomes and demographic data displayed on the dashboard, DC as a “state” includes both the traditional public district, DC Public Schools (DCPS), and all charter school LEAs located in DC. When DC data is displayed at the “district” level, it only refers to DCPS.
     
  • NOTE ON PER PUPIL SPENDING CALCULATIONS:
    • Per pupil spend figures are displayed in Bento as a calculation of the total expenditures reported for each LEA in the NCES Local Education Agency Finance Survey for SY 2013-14 divided by the total student enrollment reported for each LEA in the NCES Local Education Agency Universe Survey SY 2013-14.
    • To ensure data and visualization integrity, Bento does not display values of per pupil spend in the following cases:
      • A) the LEA’s calculated per pupil spend was greater than $60,000 or; 
      • B) the LEA’s total enrollment was less than 50 students.
         
  • NOTES ON % LOW INCOME DATA:
    • CES’s graduation rate data includes single values, ranges of values, and values that indicate either greater than or less than 50%, depending on the size of the group of students.  To represent ranges of values visually, Bento: 
      • Represents the midpoint of ranges of values that were smaller than 50%. For example, if NCES gives a range of 70% - 80%, Bento displays the midpoint (75%) and includes a note in the tooltip that provides the actual ranges from NCES.
      • Displays all values of “Greater than 50%” or “Less than 50%” as “NA.”
         
  • NOTES ABOUT THE % LABELS LISTED IN HOVER OVERS:
    • Bento displays a comparison to the national and/or state average for most data when users hover over a particular data point (see screenshot below). 
    • In the right middle column chart, Bento also displays a year-change rate to indicate how the current data point compares to previous years of data. (see screenshot below).
 
 
  • NOTES ABOUT THE % LABELS LISTED IN HOVER OVERS (CONT'D):
    • For national/state average comparison: the percentages displayed for the difference from the national and/or state average indicate the number of percentage points higher or lower the national/state average is from this particular data point. In the screenshot example, Texas (the selected state) has a high school graduation rate for 2014-15 (89%) that is 6 percentage points higher than the national average for all students for that same year (83%). 
    • For year change: the percentages displayed for the year change indicate the number of percentage points this data point increased or decreased from a previous year. In the screenshot example, Texas (the selected state) has a high school graduation rate for 2014-15 (89%) that is 3 percentage points higher than it was four years ago (86%).
       
  • NOTES ABOUT WHICH DISTRICTS AND SHAPES ARE SHOWN IN THE MAP:
    • The shape files and geographic mapping for all LEAs and state boundaries on the map are from the US Census Bureau’s TIGER / Line Shapefiles report from 2016. Any districts or LEAs that did not have corresponding shapefiles in the TIGER database are included in the search bar, but not displayed on the map. 
    • If an LEA boundary was provided in the TIGER shapefiles but did not have corresponding data available in the various education outcomes data sources, then that shape is shaded grey and the tooltip will display “NA” for the data value. These boundaries are not included in the total number of districts/LEA count.
       
  • NOTES ON SURVEY QUESTIONS DISPLAYED ON THE DASHBOARD:Some questions from the May 2017 Teacher Survey and the May 2017 School Leader Survey are not displayed on the visualization in the far right-hand side of the dashboard due to display concerns that hindered readability (e.g. lengthy question text or high volume of answer choices). To view response data for all questions on both the teacher and school leader surveys, please visit the Survey Explorer in Bento.
     
  • NOTES ON THE RANKING CHART:
    • The ranking chart on the left-hand side of the dashboard ranks all available data for a selected variable across all states when in state-view, or for all districts within a state when in district-view. 
    • The data are ranked based on the underlying, unrounded raw data. 
    • If there are ties between two data points, Bento gives both the same rank number; the next subsequent number will be skipped. For example, if two states have the same graduation rate of 85.5%, which is the second highest graduation rate, then they are both ranked second, and the next state is ranked fourth.
       
  • NOTES ON DEMOGRAPHIC CATEGORIES:
    • To create a consistent set of demographic categories across all datasets on the dashboard, Bento use the following five categories: Black, Hispanic, White, Asian, and Other. See table below for more details. 
    • When more granular data are available, the “Asian” category includes “Asian American”, “Hawaiian Native”, and “Pacific Islander”. 
    • When more granular data are available, the “Other” category includes “American Indian”, “Alaska Native”, “Multi-race”, “Two or More Race”, and “Other”.  
      • or High School graduation rate data, the “Other” category excludes “two or more races” because of data inconsistencies in how this category is used across the district and state-level data files. “Other” in this case only refers to the category of “American Indian / Alaska Native”.
      • For NAEP data, the “Other” category also excludes “Two or More Races” due to data integrity issues. The raw NAEP data only provides percentages in each of the four achievement levels, making combining the percentages across demographic categories to get to “percent proficient and above” unreliable. 
         
 

Table 1. How Bento’s student ethnicity labels map to each dataset displayed on the dashboard