• The Early Estimates System
• Highlights

The early estimates system is designed to allow the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to publish selected key statistics during the school year in which they are reported. The source of universe statistical information about public elementary and secondary education is the Common Core of Data (CCD)—data collected annually by NCES from state education agencies. The estimates included in this report were reported in December 1998 for the 1998-99 school year. ^*

In early October 1998, survey forms were sent out to each state education agency. States were asked to complete the form and return it by mail or facsimile (fax). Those states that had not responded by mid-November were contacted by telephone. All data were checked for reasonableness against prior years' reports, and follow-up calls were made to resolve any questions. When states did not supply a data item, NCES estimated a value. These values are footnoted. If one or more states required an estimated number, then the national total for that item is marked as estimated. Any early estimate that indicated a change of greater than 10 percentage points more or less than the national growth rate was replaced with an adjusted early estimate.

Forty-five states and four of the outlying areas participated in the 1998-99 public school Early Estimates Survey. The estimates reported here were provided by state education agencies and represent the best information on public elementary and secondary schools available to states at this stage of the school year. They are, however, subject to revision. All estimates for the five nonreporting states, the District of Columbia, and one outlying area were calculated by NCES. (New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, and Puerto Rico did not return the survey. Arizona, District of Columbia, and Missouri survey forms were received after the cut-off date.) NCES also estimated missing data items for a number of reporting states.

The tables in this publication include three kinds of data for the different years. "Reported" data are previously published figures. "Preliminary" data have not been published previously by NCES; for these, data collection is complete, and processing and data adjustments are through all but the final stage of review. "Estimated" data are those for the current (1998-99) school year.

Estimated data for the current school year are of three types: estimates derived by the states for NCES (most of the data are of this type); preliminary actual counts reported by individual states; and estimated values developed by NCES using a combination of state-specific and national data.

The estimates in this publication are key statistics reported during the 1998-99 school year. They include the number of students in membership, teachers, and high school graduates for public elementary and secondary schools, and total revenues and expenditures for the operation of public elementary and secondary schools. Highlights of these statistics include the following:

• There were approximately 46.3 million students in the nation's public elementary and secondary schools in fall 1998, compared with 46.1 million in fall 1997. Student membership has increased by 2.2 million since fall 1994 (table 1).
• Public school students were taught by an estimated 2.8 million teachers in school year 1998-99 (table 2).
• The student membership and teacher count data yield a pupil-to-teacher ratio of 16.6 for grade levels prekindergarten through 12 for public schools in school year 1998-99 (table 7).
• An estimated 2.4 million public school students graduated from high school in the 1997-98 school year. In the 1998-99 school year, 2.5 million students are expected to graduate from high school (table 3).
• Revenues for public elementary and secondary education in fiscal year 1998 are estimated to be $321.1 billion (table 4), and they are expected to rise to approximately $342.1 billion in FY 1999. The per-pupil expenditure for public education is anticipated to be $6,407 per student in membership for the 1998-99 school year (table 7).

Table 2.—Number of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools, by state, for grades prekindergarten through 12: School years 1994-95 to 1998-99

Table 3.—Number of public high school graduates, by state: School years 1994-95 to 1998-99

Table 4.—Revenues for public elementary and secondary education, by state, for grades prekindergarten through 12: Fiscal years 1995 to 1999 (School years 1994-95 to 1998-99) - (In thousands of dollars)

Table 5.—Current expenditures for public elementary and secondary education, by state, for grades prekindergarten through 12: Fiscal years 1995 to 1999 (School years 1994-95 to 1998-99) - (In thousands of dollars)

Table 6.—Preliminary student membership and number of teachers, and estimates of revenues, expenditures, and pupil/teacher ratio, for public elementary and secondary schools, by state, for grades prekindergarten through 12: School year 1997-98/Fiscal year 1998

Table 7.—Estimated membership, number of teachers, revenues, expenditures, and pupil/teacher ratio, for public elementary and secondary schools, by state, for grades prekindergarten through 12: School year 1998-99/Fiscal year 1999

^* For other CCD surveys, in contrast, most nonfiscal data for school year 1998-99 are reported to NCES from March 1999 through September 1999, after which they undergo NCES and state editing and are adjusted for missing data. High school graduate and fiscal data are reported a year later than student and teacher data.