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National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

The primary federal agency for collecting, analyzing, and reporting education data in the United States, housed within the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education.

Reviewed by OpenSchoolData Editorial Team

How It Works

NCES is the data backbone of American education. Through its Common Core of Data (CCD) program, NCES collects comprehensive data from every public school and school district in the United States annually, over 100,000 schools and 13,000 districts. The CCD includes enrollment figures, demographic breakdowns, school characteristics (grade levels, school type, charter status, magnet status, Title I eligibility), staffing data, and fiscal information. NCES also administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as "the Nation's Report Card," which provides the only consistent academic performance data across all states. Additionally, NCES runs major longitudinal surveys that track student outcomes over time, including the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the Education Longitudinal Study, and the Beginning Postsecondary Students survey. OpenSchoolData uses NCES Common Core of Data as its primary data source, supplemented by EDFacts assessment and graduation data. Every data point on OpenSchoolData traces back to official federal data, which is publicly available and independently verifiable. NCES typically publishes updated CCD data annually, with a one-to-two year lag, meaning the most recent available data reflects the school year that ended one to two years prior.

Related Terms

  • School Report Card, An annual public document produced by each state that provides performance data, demographic information, and accountability ratings for every public school and district.
  • School Accountability, The system by which schools and districts are held responsible for student outcomes, including state ratings, improvement plans, and potential interventions for chronically low-performing schools.
  • School Data Profile, The collection of real federal data OpenSchoolData presents for each school, including NCES enrollment, demographics, student-teacher ratio, and EDFacts proficiency and graduation rates.

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Real federal data: NCES CCD enrollment (2022), EDFacts proficiency rates (2020, district-level), EDFacts graduation rates (2019, district-level).

About This Definition

This definition is part of the OpenSchoolData Education Glossary, 33 terms explaining how school performance data works in the United States. All definitions are written in plain language for parents, educators, journalists, and researchers.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is one of the U.S. K-12 school outcomes and enrollment concepts that recurs across this site. The definition above is the technical answer; the paragraphs below add the practical context for how the concept connects to the NCES Common Core of Data and EDFacts data behind every per-entity page on the site.

In the NCES Common Core of Data and EDFacts data, this concept shapes one or more of the fields that drive the per-entity grades and rankings on this site. The methodology page describes which fields feed into which output; this glossary entry documents the underlying term.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, 2026.