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SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND TYPE OF SCHOOL
Data on school enrollment were derived from answers to long-form questionnaire Items 8a and
8b, which were asked of a sample of the population. People were classified as enrolled in school if
they reported attending a regular public or private school or college at any time between
February 1, 2000, and the time of enumeration. The question included instructions to include
only nursery school or preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, and schooling which leads to
a high school diploma or a college degree as regular school or college. Respondents who did not
answer the enrollment question were assigned the enrollment status and type of school of a
person with the same age, sex, and race/Hispanic or Latino origin whose residence was in the
same or a nearby area.
Public and private school. Public and private school includes people who attended school in
the reference period and indicated they were enrolled by marking one of the questionnaire
categories for either public school, public college or private school, private college. Schools
supported and controlled primarily by a federal, state, or local government are defined as public
(including tribal schools). Those supported and controlled primarily by religious organizations or
other private groups are private.
Comparability. School enrollment questions have been included in the census since 1840;
highest grade attended was first asked in 1940; type of school was first asked in 1960. Before
1940, the enrollment question in various censuses referred to attendance in the preceding
6 months or the preceding year. In 1940, the reference was to attendance in the month preceding
the census, and in the 1950 and subsequent censuses, the question referred to attendance in the
2 months preceding the census date.
Until the 1910 census, there were no instructions limiting the kinds of schools in which
enrollment was to be counted. Starting in 1910, the instructions indicated that attendance at
school, college, or any educational institution was to be counted. In 1930 an instruction to
include night school was added. In the 1940 instructions, night school, extension school, or
vocational school were included only if the school was part of the regular school system.
Correspondence school work of any kind was excluded. In the 1950 instructions, the term
regular school was introduced, and it was defined as schooling which advances a person
towards an elementary or high school diploma or a college, university, or professional school
degree. Vocational, trade, or business schools were excluded unless they were graded and
considered part of a regular school system. On-the-job training was excluded, as was nursery
school. Instruction by correspondence was excluded unless it was given by a regular school and
counted towards promotion. In 1960, the question used the term regular school or college and a
similar, though expanded, definition of regular was included in the instruction, which continued
to exclude nursery school. Because of the use of mailed questionnaires in the 1960 census, it was
the first census in which instructions were written for the respondent as well as enumerators. In
the 1970 census, the questionnaire used the phrase regular school or college and included
instructions to count nursery school, kindergarten, and schooling that leads to an elementary
B45
U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000
school certificate, high school diploma, or college degree. Instructions in a separate document
specified that to be counted as regular school, nursery school must include instruction as an
important and integral phase of its program, and continued the exclusion of vocational, trade, and
business schools. The 1980 census question was very similar to the 1970 question, but the
separate instruction booklet did not require that nursery school include substantial instructional
content in order to be counted. Instructions included in the 1990 respondent instruction guide,
which was mailed with the census questionnaire, further specified that enrollment in a trade or
business school, company training, or tutoring were not to be included unless the course would
be accepted for credit at a regular elementary school, high school, or college. The instruction
guide defines a public school as any school or college controlled and supported by a local,
county, state, or federal government. Schools supported and controlled primarily by religious
organizations or other private groups were defined as private. In Census 2000 there was no
separate instruction guide. The questionnaire reference book used by enumerators and telephone
assistance staff contained these definitions for those who asked questions.
The age range for which enrollment data have been obtained and published has varied over the
censuses. Information on enrollment was recorded for people of all ages in the 1930 and 1940
censuses and 1970 through 2000 censuses; for people under 30 years old in 1950; and for
people 5 to 34 years old in 1960. Most of the published enrollment figures referred to people 5 to
20 years old in the 1930 census, 5 to 24 in 1940, 5 to 29 in 1950, 5 to 34 in 1970, and 3 years
old and over in 1980 and later years. This growth in the age group whose enrollment was
reported reflects increased interest in the number of children in preprimary schools and in the
number of older people attending colleges and universities. In the 1950 and subsequent
censuses, college students were enumerated where they lived while attending college; whereas, in
earlier censuses, they generally were enumerated at their parental homes. This change should not
affect the comparability of national figures on college enrollment since 1940; however, it may
affect the comparability over time of enrollment figures at subnational levels.
Type of school was first introduced in the 1960 census, where a separate question asked the
enrolled person whether he/she was in a public or private school. Beginning with the 1970
census, the type of school was incorporated into the response categories for the enrollment
question and the terms were changed to public, parochial, and other private. In the 1980
census, private, church related and private, not church related replaced parochial and other
private. In 1990 and 2000, public and private were used. Data on school enrollment also
were collected and published by other federal, state, and local government agencies. Where these
data were obtained from administrative records of school systems and institutions of higher
learning, they were only roughly comparable to data from population censuses and household
surveys because of differences in definitions and concepts, subject matter covered, time
references, and enumeration methods. At the local level, the difference between the location of
the institution and the residence of the student may affect the comparability of census and
administrative data. Differences between the boundaries of school districts and census
geographic units may also affect these comparisons.
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