Private School Universe Survey: Characteristics of U.S. Private Schools, 2011-12

The 2011-12 Private School Universe Survey (PSS) is a biennial collection by the U.S. Census Bureau for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It provides data on all private schools in the 50 states and District of Columbia, covering grades K-12, to serve as a sampling frame and generate totals for schools, students, and teachers. The data were collected between September 2011 and May 2012, with analysis performed using SAS and SUDAAN software.

Use Cases

• Modeling private school enrollment patterns based on school characteristics mentioned in the survey.
• Analyzing the distribution of teacher counts across different types of private schools.
• Studying bivariate relationships between school attributes, as indicated by the report's table structure.
• Building a sampling frame for further educational research, as stated in the survey's purpose.

Strengths

• Data collection is conducted biennially by the U.S. Census Bureau, an authoritative statistical agency.
• The target population is clearly defined as all private schools in the 50 states and D.C. for grades K-12.
• Statistical results are weighted for sample design and nonresponse, and significance is tested at the 0.05 level.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• The description states the analysis is purely descriptive and does not explore complex interactions between variables.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education.

Collection Method

Biennial survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Time Range

2011-12 school year (with high school graduate data from 2010-11).

Freshness

Data is from the 2011-12 school year; update frequency is biennial but current status is unknown.

Geography

United States (50 states and the District of Columbia).