In California in 2022, 20.5 percent of students enrolled in K-12 public schools were white, 11.9 percent were Asian, and 56.2 percent were Hispanic. In the United States overall, 44.7 percent of K-12 public school students were white, 5.5 percent were Asian, and 28.7 percent were Hispanic.

Historical Dataset of Texas is provided by PublicSchoolReview and contain statistics on metrics:Trends in the Average Number of Students Per Public School,Trends in the Average Number of Teachers Per Public School,Student-Teacher Ratio Trends (1991-2023),Asian Student Percentage Trends,Hispanic Student Percentage Trends,Black Student Percentage Trends,White Student Percentage Trends,Two or More Races Student Percentage Trends,Diversity Score Trends,Free Lunch Eligibility Trends,Reduced-Price Lunch Eligibility Trends,Median Total Revenues Trends,Median Total Expenditures Trends,Average Revenue Per Student Trends,Average Expenditure Per Student Trends,Reading and Language Arts Proficiency Trends,Math Proficiency Trends,Science Proficiency Trends,Graduation Rate Trends

The TIGER/Line shapefiles and related database files (.dbf) are an extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). The MTDB represents a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps between parts, however, each TIGER/Line shapefile is designed to stand alone as an independent data set, or they can be combined to cover the entire nation. School Districts are single-purpose administrative units within which local officials provide public educational services for the area's residents. The Census Bureau obtains the boundaries, names, local education agency codes, grade ranges, and school district levels for school districts from State officials for the primary purpose of providing the U.S. Department of Education with estimates of the number of children in poverty within each school district. This information serves as the basis for the Department of Education to determine the annual allocation of Title I funding to States and school districts. TIGER/Line Shapefiles include separate shapefiles for elementary, secondary and unified school districts. The school district boundaries are those in effect for the 2021-2022 school year, i.e., in operation as of January 1, 2022.

ALL FILES ARE LOCATED AT MY REPOSITORY: https://github.com/christianio123/TexasAttendance

Context

I was curious about factors affecting school attendance so I gathered data from school districts around Texas to have a better idea.

Topic/Purpose

The purpose of the project is to help determine factors associated with student attendance in the state of Texas. No population is targeted as an audience for the project, however, anyone associated in education may find the dataset used (and other data attained but not used) helpful in any questions they may have regarding student attendance in Texas for the first two months of the 2020-2021 academic school year. This topic was targeted specifically due to the abnormalities in the current academic school year.

Data

Daily Student Attendance

Majority of the data in this project was collected by school districts around the state of Texas, public census information, and public COVID 19 data. To attain student attendance information, an email was sent out to 40 school districts around the state of Texas on November 2nd, 2020 using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Of those districts, 19 responded with the requested data, while other districts required purchase of the data due to the number of hours associated with labor. Due to ambiguity in the original message sent to districts, varying types of data were collected. The major difference between the data received was the “daily” records of student attendance and a “summary” of student attendance records so far, this academic school year. School districts took between 10 to 15 business days to respond, not including the holidays. The focus of this project is “daily student attendance” in order to find relationships or any influences from external or internal factors on any given school day. Therefore, of the 19 school districts that responded, 11 sent the appropriate data.
The 11 school districts that sent data were (1) Conroe ISD, (2) Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, (3) Floydada ISD, (4) Fort Worth ISD, (5) Pasadena ISD, (6) Snook ISD, (7) Socorro ISD, (8) Klein ISD, (9) Garland ISD, (10) Dallas ISD, and (11) Katy ISD. However, even within these datasets, there were discrepancies, that is, three school districts sent daily attendance data including student grade level but one school district did not include any other information. Also, of the 11 school districts, nine school districts included student attendance broken down by school while three other school districts only had student attendance with no other attributes. This information is important to explain certain steps in analysis preparation later. Variables used from school district datasets included (a) dates, (b) weekdays, (c) school name, (d) school type, (e) district, and (f) grade level.

School Information, County Description, Metropolitan vs. Non-Metropolitan

  In addition to daily student attendance data, two other datasets were used from the Texas Education Agency with data about each school and school district. In one dataset, “Current Schools”, information about each school in the state of Texas was given such as address, principal, county name, district number and much more as of May 2020. From this dataset, variables selected include (a) school name, (b) school zip, (3) district number, (4) and school type. In the second dataset, “District Type”, attributes of each school district were given such as whether the school district was considered major urban, independent town, or a rural area. From “District Type” dataset, selected variables used were (a) district, district number, Texas Education Agency (TEA) description, and National Center of Education Statistics (NCES). To determine if a county is metropolitan or non-metropolitan, a dataset from the Texas Health and Human Services was used. Selected variables from this dataset include (a) county name and (b) metro area. 

Other Factors: COVID-19

 Student attendance has been noticeably different this academic school year, therefore live COVID-19 data was attained from the New York Times to examine for any relationship. This dataset is updated daily with data being available in three formats (country, state, and county). From this dataset, variables selected were both COVID-19 cases by state, and by county.

Other Factors: Demographics

Each school has a unique student population, therefore census data from 2018 (with best estimate of today’s current population) was used to find the makeup of the population surrounding a school by zip code. From the census data, variables selected were zip code, race/ethnicity, medium income, unemployment rate, and education. These variables were selected to determine differences between school attendance based on the makeup of the population surrounding the school.

Other Factors: Weather

  Weather seems to have an impact on student attendance at schools, so weather data has been included based on county measures.

Context

We at Teaching Trust are sharing the student achievement dataset that we have spent the past year gathering in partnership with TCB Analytics. Our hope is that these data will drive insights and actions that advance public education. We are big believers in the collective impact of data #transparency.

Over the last year, Teaching Trust worked together with TCB Analytics to gather all publicly available data released by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) between 2012 and 2019. Multiple times each year, the TEA releases student academic achievement data, broadly referred to as STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) data, but each release is typically formatted differently (meaning that it is difficult to work with across multiple years). In downloading each and every data release, we were able to gather all the data in one place and begin the process of tidying it so that it is usable for longitudinal data analysis.

Since Teaching Trust is winding down operations over the next several months, we have decided to make this scraped data (and all the R code used to scrape and tidy it) publicly available via Kaggle Datasets. We are encouraging other education researchers and data scientists to use the data and code for their projects.

Texas is a large state, with over 5 million students (~10% of the nation’s public school students), so we know that this could be useful for understanding and improving public education. In addition, other education advocates, nonprofits, and funders can use this data to understand their own impact. We chose Kaggle Datasets to make the data publicly available.

Content

This data was scraped from TEA publicly available data which includes datasets aggregated at the state, district, school levels. Within the STAAR-related datasets, data are broken down by test subject, performance label, and (in some files) grade level and student demographic grouping; for each observation there is a numerator, denominator, and rate within the file.

For more information on all TEA reports and data, please refer to: https://tea.texas.gov/reports-and-data

We are sharing this data on Kaggle so that it is publicly available. If you or your colleagues continue to tidy the data, we hope that you will share your process, code, or links to public GitHub files in the Kaggle dataset here.

Description of the TEA Data Releases Preliminary data (or what TEA terms “Aggregate data”) is STAAR data released shortly after the school year ends (typically in July of each year); this data includes breakdowns by grade level, and demographic breakdowns by race, gender, economic disadvantage, free/reduced lunch; this data includes “all students tested.” - TEA INFO ABOUT DATA: https://tea.texas.gov/Student_Testing_and_Accountability/Testing/State_of_Texas_Assessments_of_Academic_Readiness/STAAR_Aggregate_Data - TEA DATA DICTIONARIES: https://tea.texas.gov/Student_Testing_and_Accountability/Testing/State_of_Texas_Assessments_of_Academic_Readiness_(STAAR)/STAAR_Variables,_Formats,_and_Descriptions

Accountability data is STAAR data released at the end of the summer (typically in August); this STAAR data is “final”; the data includes demographic breakdowns but not grade-level breakdowns; this data includes only assessment results for students enrolled in the district or campus in a previous fall (for a list of other students excluded/included, see the links below). Accountability data also includes Accountability Ratings -- scores and letter grades assigned to schools based on multiple criteria. Schools may appeal their scores/grades any updated scores/grades appear in the TAPR data). - TEA INFO ABOUT DATA: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/index.html - TEA DATA DICTIONARIES: 2019: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/2019/download/acctref.html 2018: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/2018/download/acctref.html 2017: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/2017/download/acctref.html 2016: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/2016/download/acctref.html 2015: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/2015/download/acctref.html 2014: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/2014/download/acctref.html 2013: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/tapr/2013/download/taprref.html 2011: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/account/2011/acctref.html

TAPR (Texas Academic Performance Reports) data includes final STAAR data and final Accountability ratings. The STAAR data includes data breakdowns for grade and demographic categories and includes only students enrolled in the previous fall. Additionally, the TAPR data includes extensive data on school and district staff, programs, and demographics. ...

In 2022, there were close to *** million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in California, the most out of any state in the United States. Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois rounded out the top five states for public school enrollment in that year.

Historical Dataset of Texas High School is provided by PublicSchoolReview and contain statistics on metrics:Total Students Trends Over Years (1987-2023),Total Classroom Teachers Trends Over Years (1991-2023),Distribution of Students By Grade Trends,Student-Teacher Ratio Comparison Over Years (1991-2023),Asian Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (1991-2023),Hispanic Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (1993-2023),Black Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (1991-2023),White Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (1991-2023),Two or More Races Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (2013-2023),Diversity Score Comparison Over Years (1991-2023),Free Lunch Eligibility Comparison Over Years (1993-2023),Reduced-Price Lunch Eligibility Comparison Over Years (1999-2023),Reading and Language Arts Proficiency Comparison Over Years (2011-2022),Math Proficiency Comparison Over Years (2012-2023),Science Proficiency Comparison Over Years (2021-2022),Overall School Rank Trends Over Years (2012-2023),Graduation Rate Comparison Over Years (2012-2023)

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher for Texas (GCT1501TX) from 2006 to 2024 about secondary schooling, secondary, educational attainment, 25 years +, education, TX, and USA.

Comprehensive demographic dataset for Texas State University Round Rock Campus, Round Rock, TX, US including population statistics, household income, housing units, education levels, employment data, and transportation with year-over-year changes.

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher (5-year estimate) in Bell County, TX (HC01ESTVC1648027) from 2010 to 2023 about Bell County, TX; Killeen; secondary schooling; secondary; educational attainment; education; TX; 5-year; and USA.

This dataset tracks annual white student percentage from 1991 to 2023 for Shepton High School vs. Texas and Plano Independent School District

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher (5-year estimate) in El Paso County, TX (HC01ESTVC1648141) from 2010 to 2023 about El Paso County, TX; El Paso; secondary schooling; secondary; educational attainment; education; TX; 5-year; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher (5-year estimate) in King County, TX (HC01ESTVC1648269) from 2010 to 2023 about King County, TX; secondary schooling; secondary; educational attainment; education; TX; 5-year; and USA.

This dataset tracks annual distribution of students across grade levels in Texas High School

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher (5-year estimate) in Dallas County, TX (HC01ESTVC1648113) from 2010 to 2023 about Dallas County, TX; secondary schooling; secondary; Dallas; educational attainment; education; TX; 5-year; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher (5-year estimate) in Madison County, TX (HC01ESTVC1648313) from 2010 to 2023 about Madison County, TX; secondary schooling; secondary; educational attainment; education; TX; 5-year; and USA.

Historical Dataset of KIPP Texas Public Schools is provided by PublicSchoolReview and contain statistics on metrics:Comparison of Diversity Score Trends,Total Revenues Trends,Total Expenditure Trends,Average Revenue Per Student Trends,Average Expenditure Per Student Trends,Reading and Language Arts Proficiency Trends,Math Proficiency Trends,Science Proficiency Trends,Graduation Rate Trends,Overall School District Rank Trends,Asian Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (2011-2023),Hispanic Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (2005-2023),Black Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (2005-2023),White Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (2006-2023),Two or More Races Student Percentage Comparison Over Years (2014-2023),Comparison of Students By Grade Trends

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of Texas High School Coaches Education Foundation

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher (5-year estimate) in Tarrant County, TX (HC01ESTVC1648439) from 2010 to 2023 about Tarrant County, TX; secondary schooling; secondary; Dallas; educational attainment; education; TX; 5-year; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for High School Graduate or Higher (5-year estimate) in Webb County, TX (HC01ESTVC1648479) from 2010 to 2023 about Webb County, TX; Laredo; secondary schooling; secondary; educational attainment; education; TX; 5-year; and USA.