CHANGES IN THE USE OF EDUCATION 

ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS: 

THE COMMON CORE OF DATA 

Lee M. Hoffman and Beth Aronstamm Young 

National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education 

Abstract 

This paper will discuss the evolution of Administrative Records collections from simple lists to a major, multipurpose source of data to meet increasing needs from both the statistical and non-statistical communities. We 

will argue that changes in the data collected by administrative records, the users of the data, and the products 

demanded by the public constitute systemic changes in how administrative records are seen and used. We will 

use the Common Core of Data (CCD), the annual NCES administrative records collection of data from every 

public school, district and state, to illustrate these changes. 

Keywords: Administrative records, Statistical uses 

The survey collection that today comprises the Common Core of Data (CCD) has been in 

existence for more than 35 years, and actually predates the agency that now houses it, the 

National Center for Education Statistics. The purpose of this paper is to examine the content 

and uses of the CCD surveys, in particular the Nonfiscal components, as these have changed 

in the last decade and to argue that the role of administrative records data, as exemplified by 

the CCD, is undergoing a substantial change. 

Description of the CCD Surveys 

The CCD collects a limited number of statistics about the universe of public elementary and 

secondary education institutions. The present system consists of four nonfiscal and two 

fiscal surveys. The nonfiscal surveys include the State Nonfiscal survey; the Public 

Education Agency (school district) Survey; the Public School survey; and the Early 

Estimates survey. (This last survey includes two items on school finance.) The fiscal 

surveys include the state-level National Public Education Finance Survey, and the Annual 

Survey of Local Governments School Systems (Form F-33). The F-33 belongs properly to 

the Bureau of the Census, but NCES has co-sponsored the collection, incorporating some of 

its own items and fiscal conventions, since 1990. 

Collection Processes 

For all surveys, regardless of the level at which information is reported, the state education 

agency (SEA) is the respondent. Participation is voluntary and SEAs receive no 

compensation for their work. Respondents include the 50 states, the District of Columbia, 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs, both overseas and domestic Department of Defense

Dependents Schools, and the five outlying areas of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of 

the Northern Marianas Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. With the 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

exception of BIA and DoDDS, which do not report fiscal data, there is item nonresponse but 

no survey nonresponse. 

The school and school district surveys, which are collected as flat files with the option of 

using editing software, are distributed in the form of prior year files in late January of the 

school year reported. Data collection is cut off almost nine months after this mail out on 

September 30; and the ongoing processing, editing, respondent review, and correction 

continue for another three months. The SEA reports most items that appear on the final 

CCD files. A few, such as the unique identification number for each school and agency, are 

assigned by NCES.1 

Upon first receipt, the files are checked for valid cases that have sufficient information for 

further processing. Identification numbers are assigned to new schools and agencies. Data 

are not edited at this point. An example of data processing at this stage would be to 

determine whether a school has an acceptable address and operational status, but not to 

examine the numbers of teachers and students reported for the school. 

Data are edited during the next editing stage, after a file has been determined to contain only 

valid cases. As a final step, items not reported by the SEAs, such as locale code or county 

FIPS code, are added. Missing data are rarely imputed, and challenged data, if asserted to 

be correct by the SEA, are suppressed only if they are impossible. An example of 

“impossible data” would be a state’s report that it has no students who were granted General 

Education Development (GED) diplomas. In this case, editing would change the reports of 

“not applicable” to “missing,” because external evidence shows that all states grant such 

degrees. 

In the 1999-2000 school year, the CCD reported data for more than 92,000 public schools 

and almost 17,000 local education agencies. 

Content of the CCD Surveys 

The nonfiscal CCD surveys provide three types of information: 

•฀ Directory information, such as school or agency name, address, county, telephone 

number; 

•฀ Descriptive characteristics of the school or agency such as its type (example, regular 

school district or one providing special administrative services), urbanicity (example, 

in a rural or urban locale), and program “flags” (example, magnet, charter, Title I 

school); and 

•฀ Statistics about the students and staff associated with the school or agency (example, 

numbers of students by racial/ethnic group by grade). 

The survey content is nested to some degree. Each agency must be associated with a state, 

and each school must have an associated agency. However, data are not expected to 

necessarily sum from one level to the next. For example, the number of students reported 

1

 The Bureau of the Census, Governments Division, is the collection and processing agent for the CCD. 

References to NCES’s role in the CCD include the survey activities of Census. 
 

 

 

for a local education agency may differ from the sum of students reported for its schools 

because there may be some students served outside a school setting or because the schools 

may report students tuitioned in from some other district. 

Changes in the CCD – Late 1980’s to Present 

This paper focuses on changes made during the 1990’s, subsequent to external review of 

NCES and the CCD survey system. Acting on recommendations made in the mid-1980’s, 

NCES had by 1989 revised the CCD survey system.2

 Since that time the content of the 

CCD has expanded and NCES has worked with its respondent and user groups to introduce 

data definitions and associated standards that go considerably beyond the scope of the CCD 

surveys. The uses of CCD data have been affected primarily by changes in three areas: the 

content of the surveys; access to the information; and groups involved in survey 

development. 

Changes in Survey Content 

The CCD school and agency surveys of 1990 were relatively short. The School Universe 

Survey reported school identification numbers, mailing address, and telephone number; 

identified the agency with which the school was associated, school type (regular, vocational, 

etc.), locale type (rural, urban, etc.) and whether the school was new, closed, or ongoing. It 

also reported the enrollment by grade, total enrollment by race, total teacher FTE, and 

number of students eligible for free lunch. 

The Local Education Agency Survey provided similar identification and directory 

information as well as agency type (regular school district, etc.), and several geographic 

indicators such as the FIPS county code, CMSA/PMSA/MSA status, and Metropolitan 

Status Code. Boundary change codes indicated whether agencies were new, closed, or 

reconfigured, and the survey included total ungraded and Prekindergarten (PK) through 

grade 12 enrollment, numbers of students with special education Individualized Education 

Programs (IEPs), and numbers of high school completers. 

In the 1991-92 school year the School Universe Survey was unchanged but the Local 

Education Agency Universe Survey expanded considerably by adding two statistics. These 

were staff full-time equivalent (FTE) counts in a total of 17 instructional, support and 

administrative categories and counts of dropouts, by sex and race/ethnicity, in each of grades 

7 through 12. 

The staff data items had been collected in previous years on the State Nonfiscal Survey (and 

remain on that survey). The dropout statistic was new. Both statistics, particularly 

dropouts, required considerable negotiation between NCES and SEAs to achieve acceptable 

comparability among state reports. 

2

 Internal discussion draft, February 1991, response to Hall, G., Jaeger, R., Kearney, P. and Wiley, D, 

Alternatives for a National Data System on Elementary and Secondary Education, National Academy of 

Sciences, December 1985. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The content of the CCD surveys remained unchanged until the 1998-99 school year. At that 

time several items were added to the Local Education Agency and School Universe Surveys. 

The changes were intended to make the surveys more useful as sampling frames for research 

and program evaluation purposes. For both surveys, this involved adding a location address 

(in addition to mailing address) and asking for the grade span (which had previously been 

determined by actual student enrollment). The agency survey added student detail: limited 

English proficient and summer migrant students served, and race and sex of high school 

completers. The school survey added “flags” identifying Title I, Title I school wide 

program, magnet, and charter schools. Student data included race and sex detail on gradelevel enrollments, separate reporting of the number of free lunch and reduced-price lunch 

eligible students, and cumulative migrant student enrollment during the school year. 

Changes in Data Access 

Changing technology and the advent of the World Wide Web drastically altered the amount 

of access data users had to CCD information. Technology allowed NCES to publish its data 

files in user-friendly formats on the Internet. Several data tools, such as the CCD School 

and District Locator, gave the public access to information about individual schools and 

school districts. The Web opened the door to NCES data to parents, students, and the 

general public. 

Paradoxically, the act of making CCD data more accessible to non-statisticians contributed 

to data quality improvements that made the files more useful to those with statistical and 

research interests. Increased access increased the CCD user group exponentially, and they 

in turn contributed questions, challenges, and suggestions on all aspects of the CCD survey 

system. This has led to better data quality and improvements in the editing process. When 

federal programs use the CCD for purposes such as determining grant eligibility this also 

increases the pressure on SEAs to report all data items. 

Groups Involved in Survey Development 

The changes that appeared in the 1991 surveys were very much concerned with the capacity 

to collect standardized and complete information from SEAs. The Council of Chief State 

School Officers, under contract with NCES, examined each data item reported by SEAs, 

identifying gaps and discrepancies and developing individualized state plans for CCD 

reporting improvement. NCES worked directly with SEAs to develop a consensus 

definition of school dropout that could be collected through the CCD. The dropout statistic 

was an innovation in two ways: it deliberately allowed state and district comparisons on a 

high-stakes educational outcome, and it very visibly required states to change their own 

definitions and reporting practices in order to comply with the CCD.3 

In contrast, the 1998 survey expansions were motivated primarily by requests from those 

who used the surveys as sampling frames. This included statistical collections, such as the 

National Assessment of Education Progress, that ran into problems when a school was not 

3

 This paper does not discuss the NPEFS. However, it should be noted that during this same time NCES 

undertook considerable effort to ensure that state finance reports followed common standards. 
 

 

 

 

located at its mailing address, and Department of Education program offices that wanted 

sub-state detail on program participation. This set of changes can be characterized as not 

requiring SEAs to change the content of their information systems (as had been the case 

with the dropout statistic) but requiring them, in many cases, to change the way in which 

these systems were organized. For example, the data needed for the program participation 

and school flag items are rarely maintained in a single data system within an SEA. 

Data Standards Movement 

At the same time that CCD content and use were expanding, the education information 

community was moving toward an endorsement of data sharing and national data standards. 

By 1989, NCES had established a National Cooperative Education Statistics System that 

included all state education agencies and those federal agencies and national associations 

that were major providers or consumers of PK-12 education data. 

Under the Cooperative System, promulgating data standards has grown into an ongoing 

function for NCES. The agency has revised its Student and Staff Data Handbooks that had 

been out of print since the 1970’s, and has established a system for updating them annually. 

The handbook, Financial Accounting for Local and State School Systems has been updated 

periodically, and is now in the process of complete revision. 

These handbooks are much broader in scope than the content of the CCD surveys. Members 

of the Cooperative System are also creating new handbooks. At this time, work is underway 

on defining data elements in the areas of school crime, violence and disciplinary incidents; 

school facilities; and technology. 

In addition to defining data elements, the Cooperative System has developed, or is 

influencing, electronic data standards. The group collaborated with postsecondary education 

to produce standards for transmitting electronic data about students and staff, and is 

participating with education software vendors in the development of extensible markup 

language (XML) standards as well. Finally, the Cooperative System has developed and 

published what are characterized as “best practice” guidelines for structuring state and local 

education data systems. 

Current Uses of the CCD 

CCD data have become increasingly available through electronic products in the last five 

years. The increased accessibility, in combination with work on standardizing data, has 

increased the ways in which the surveys are used. Four major categories of use include: 

•฀ Listing schools and agencies; 

•฀ Providing a sampling frame; 

•฀ Presenting basic descriptive data; 

•฀ Telling a story. 
 

 

 

 

 

Listing Schools and Agencies 

This is a longstanding function of the CCD. Commercial mailing list providers, such as 

MDR or QED, use it as the starting point for their own databases. Vendors rely on the CCD 

for mailing addresses. Police departments have called upon the CCD staff to track down the 

school that issued a class ring found at the scene of a crime, and film companies routinely 

check to ensure that they don’t inadvertently use a real high school’s name in a movie. With 

the introduction of easily customized mailing lists on the NCES Web Site, noncommercial 

use has increased. 

Sampling Frames 

The quality of the CCD data has improved in the last 10 years, and NCES now makes 

preliminary files available for sampling purposes under controlled conditions. These 

changes, and the content added in 1998, have increased the surveys’ value as sampling 

frames. Within NCES, major surveys such as the National Assessment of Education 

Progress, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, and the Schools and Staffing Survey now 

use the CCD as a sampling frame. 

Basic Data 

CCD data are used extensively in NCES’s flagship publications such as the Digest of 

Education Statistic and in multiple annual CCD data releases and less frequently published 

State Profiles. News media and education program planners use the CCD’s basic data 

extensively, usually in combination with other information. CCD files provide information 

over time on school enrollments, numbers of teachers, teacher/pupil ratios, revenues and 

expenditures for public education, and similar bread-and-butter statistics. One tool created 

in the 1990’s for non-technical audiences is the Public School and District Locator. This is 

an easy to use Web tool for finding information about individual institutions. Next to 

NCES’s home page, and the Department of Education’s postsecondary student financial aid 

site, the Locator is the most frequently visited Web site for the Department of Education. 

Telling a Story 

Additional content has meant additional interest. In recent years CCD data have supported 

reports on topical issues. These have included, for example, an analysis of the 

characteristics of small and rural schools and districts, a study of changes in racial isolation 

(the chances that a minority student will have non-minority classmates) within schools over 

time, and disparities in school district spending. There are also annual NCES reports of a 

more analytical nature that rely on the CCD. Examples include the annual 100 Largest 

School Districts, and Dropout Rates in the United States, as well as an upcoming report on 

high school completion and dropout rates from 1991 to the present. 
 

 

 

 

Emerging Uses of the CCD 

There is a healthy interaction between the CCD and its products: better quality, more 

accessible data lead to survey improvements that in turn result in better, more accessible 

data. The survey system also benefits from having its respondents (SEAs) play a major role 

in redesign. 

Education Institution Verification 

Some parts of the U.S. Department of Education have begun to use the CCD in establishing 

program eligibility. Legislation for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) 

limits participation to districts whose schools are classified as rural by the CCD. The 

Telecommunications Act of 1996 program (commonly known as E-Rate) requires that

grantees include their CCD school identification code on applications. These uses have 

brought the CCD’s data and coverage under closer scrutiny and arguably improved the 

survey products. The movement has been toward more use of the CCD identification codes 

to validate an institution’s legitimacy by the Department of Education, and even some 

privately funded grants. The CCD identification codes also provide a means through which 

other data collections can link their files with the CCD and thereby increase the information 

in them. 

On-Going Data Standards and Technology Change 

The Office of the Chief Information Officer is considering using CCD definitions as 

standards for program data collections throughout the U.S. Department of Education. At the 

same time, program offices are attempting to coordinate their collections in order to reduce 

the reporting placed on schools and districts and to expand the potential uses of their own 

data. These offices are using CCD definitions wherever applicable, and will adopt the CCD 

school and agency identification codes. This will allow them to connect their data to the 

CCD, providing more information without additional cost and burden. Current legislation 

specifies the CCD locale codes for determining rural status under one program, and at least 

one draft of federal education legislation would incorporate the CCD dropout definition. 

As mentioned earlier, the CCD data items are among those NCES standards that have been, 

or are being, endorsed by national groups. The American National Standards Institute X-12 

Committee has approved the NCES-sponsored standards for transmitting information 

electronically about students and staff. NCES through its Cooperative System members is 

working to ensure that NCES/CCD data definitions are incorporated in the Schools

Interoperability Framework that will support commercial school information management 

systems in areas ranging from students information to food service management. 

CCD as a Research Data Base 

“Research” is used loosely here to include almost any use of information to tell a story. In 

the past CCD data carried limited information. They said little about the health of the 

education system, or how it had changed, and their descriptive power was almost one-
 

 

 

 

 

dimensional. Having said a school has 23 teachers and 315 students, one has not said very 

much. 

Developments within the CCD and in the broader world of information technology have 

gone a long way to change that situation. The SEAs that report CCD data are themselves 

maintaining information at a greater level of granularity. Almost all states maintain schoollevel report cards on their Web sites. Increasing numbers of states are instituting student 

record systems. Reducing the level of aggregation to the school – and at some time, student 

– level makes it possible to cut the data in a variety of ways with relatively little effort. 

Information technology also encourages the adoption of standards. To the extent that 

common definitions are applied to school-level data, the possibility of using these data to 

answer questions comes closer to being a reality. 

Within the last year NCES has completed a longitudinal file (1986 – 1997) of CCD school 

and agency data. Unlike the official year-by-year files, this database links schools and 

agencies over time and imputes missing data. NCES plans to impute and add data for 

subsequent years to this file. 

The CCD has two potential advantages as a research tool. One is simply that it provides a 

unique identifier for every public school and local education agency in the United States. 

The other advantage is that, as a voluntary administrative records collection, it is likely to 

include data items that are feasible to report and that are potentially valid and reliable. 

Consensus definitions must take into account and bridge differences in local practice. 

What Is Needed to Increase CCD Use 

The CCD has developed considerably over the past 10 years, but it is by no means ready to 

answer all the information needs of educational programs. Discussions with its users within 

SEAs and the Department of Education have identified at least four areas that need 

improvement. 

1. Fill in all the holes. States must achieve 100 percent item response, or missing data 

must be imputed. If the latter occurs, NCES will probably have to maintain – and 

distinguish between - an imputed research file and a public use file that has some 

missing data. 

2. Level the playing field. Administrative records data are of limited use unless they 

can assure users that all respondents follow the same definitions and reporting 

standards. This can be accomplished to some degree through “crosswalks” that 

equate data after the fact, but that is not as satisfactory a solution as common 

adoption of standards by all states. 

3. Differentiate the cases. Users have requested additional items flagging various types 

of schools and districts, such as identifying various levels of school involvement in 

vocational education, to allow them to draw more specialized samples. 

4. Add detail to existing statistics. There have been requests for information about the 

race/ethnicity and gender of education staff and for the ability to relate expenditure 

data to basic program areas, such as the regular curriculum or special education. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strengths and Liabilities of Administrative Records Data 

Do administrative records have sufficient potential as sources of valid and useful data to 

warrant the cost (both in federal dollars and respondent burden) of improving them? We 

would argue that they do, and that the wider adoption of data standards and the development 

of tools that make information increasingly accessible, support this argument. 

Administrative record collections such as the CCD have some built-in limitations. The 

derivative federal report will always have a lower priority than local or state information 

needs. Comparability will be limited by both human interpretation and by the variation in 

state education systems – there is no “tidy” way to deal with the geography of county school 

districts versus those that may be scattered over, but not coterminous with, several counties, 

or that may occupy the same space as other school districts. Access to universe data also 

raises the risk of divulging individual identity. One reason that the CCD does not include 

email addresses is that they may have a name embedded in them, and would thus breach 

NCES’s confidentiality standards. 

However, administrative records provide data at little extra cost to the collector or burden on 

the respondent. They can serve as a lynchpin for connecting other data collections, thereby 

increasing information power considerably, again at little cost. Administrative records data 

derive from information used in the daily operation of schools, and are thus familiar to the 

public. The fact that they are used initially for practical education decisions suggests that 

they are likely to be scrutinized closely, which argues for better quality. 

Content of Common Core of Data School Universe Survey, 1990 - Present 

Pre-1990 1991 1998 

State Agency ID Same Same 

NCES Agency ID Same Same 

Agency Name Same Same 

School Name Same Same 

State School ID Same Same 

NCES School ID Same Same 

Mailing Address, City, State, ZIP Same Same 

Location Address, City, State, ZIP 

Telephone Same Same 

School Type Same Same 

Operational Status Code Same Same 

Grade Span (lowest, highest) 

Locale Type Code Same Same 

Title I School Flag 

Title I Schoolwide Flag 

Magnet School Flag 

Charter School Flag 

Teacher FTE Same Same 

Enrollment by Grade (15 items) Same Enrollment by grade by race by sex 

Total Free Lunch Eligible Same Same 

Total Reduced-Price Meal Eligible 

Total Enrollment by Race Same See, Enrollment 

Migrant Students School Year 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Content of Common Core of Data Local Education Agency Universe Survey, 1990 - Present 

Pre-1991 1991 1998 

NCESAgency ID Same Same 

State Agency ID Same Same 

Agency Name Same Same 

Mailing Address, City, State, ZIP Same Same 

Location Address, City, State, ZIP 

Telephone Same Same 

Agency Type Same Same 

Supervisory Union ID Same Same 

FIPS County Code Same Same 

County Name 

CMSA/PMSA/MSA Same Same 

Metro Status Code Same Same 

Boundary Change Code Same Same 

Grade Span (lowest-highest) 

Ungraded Students Same Same 

Total PK-12 Students Same Same 

IEP Students Same Same 

Total Limited English Proficient 

Students 

Total Migrant Students Summer 

Programs 

Regular Diploma Recipients Same By Race and Sex 

Other Diploma Recipients Same By Race and Sex 

Equivalency Recipients Deleted – state level only Same

Other Completers Same By Race and Sex 

Dropouts by Race by Sex by 

Grade 7-12 

Same 

Teachers (6 items) Same

 Aides Same

 Instructional Coordinators Same 

Counselors (3 items) Same

 Library/Media Specialists Same

 Library/Media Support Same

 LEA Administrators Same

 LEA Administrative Support Same

 School Administrators Same

 School Administrative Support Same 

Student Support Services Same 

All Other Support Services Same