Small-Area Estimates of School-Age Children in Poverty Evaluation of Current Methodology (2000) / Chapter Skim
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School District Estimates
School District Estimates
Pages 109-140
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From page 109... ...
It reviews the difficulties that confront attempts to develop such estimates; describes the procedure that the Census Bureau used to develop district-level estimates of school-age children in July 1996 who were in poor families in 1995; and assesses the limited evaluations that are possible of these estimates. Finally, the chapter discusses the implications of the evaluations for the use of updated school district estimates for Title I allocations.
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From page 110... ...
Because of these problems, there are no data sources now available for developing updated school district estimates of poor school-age children by using the type of model-based approach that was used for county estimates. These problems also compromise the quality of the estimates for school districts that can be made by aggregating data for blocks from the decennial census.
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From page 111... ...
, of which 190 crossed county lines. In the remaining 26 states, school district boundaries are unique to districts and often cross county lines.
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From page 112... ...
Finally, data from school districts on students who are approved to receive free meals under the National School Lunch Program (requested from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics in its Common Core of Data program) are far from complete and are of uncertain quality and applicability (see below, "School Lunch Datable.
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From page 113... ...
(7) The 1995 school district estimates of poor school-age children were the 5When school district boundaries crossed census block boundaries, the poor school-age children in such a block were assigned to the appropriate school districts in proportion to the area of each district included in the block.
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From page 114... ...
. Another nine states used 1990 census data together with other data sources, such as school lunch data, to allocate Title I county funds to school districts (according to the U.S.
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From page 115... ...
Variability in Census Estimates The two inputs to the Census Bureau's within-county shares procedure for school district estimates of the number of poor school-age children are the county model estimates for the target year, which have been extensively evaluated (see Chapter 6) , and the 1990 census estimates for determining school district shares, which are discussed in this section.
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From page 116... ...
This procedure somewhat reduces the variability of the estimates: the mean coefficient of variation of the ratio-adjusted estimates is 30 percent, compared with 32 percent for the long-form estimates, a reduction of 7 percent. The Census Bureau used the ratio-adjusted 1990 census estimates of poor school-age children to construct the 1995 school district estimates but, given time constraints, did not conduct research on ways to further reduce the variability of the census estimates.
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From page 117... ...
Another line of research is to smooth the 1990 census school district estimates with the 1990 census county estimates, which would reduce the variability for smaller size districts (see Chapter 9~. Census Data Evaluations The Census Bureau constructed a file of 1980 and 1990 census data for selected school districts, which was used to compare three sets of estimates of poor school-age children in 1989 with estimates from the 1990 census.
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From page 118... ...
The 1980 and 1990 census school district files were matched, using their identification numbers and other characteristics, and the following kinds of 1990 districts were dropped from the evaluation file: · 928 districts or district parts for which the district or part was coterminous with a county and, hence, for which the county model would provide estimates; · 4,108 districts that were not "unified," that is, that covered a limited grade range, such as kindergarten-8 or 9-12; · 416 districts that were newly formed and had no counterpart in 1980; . 12 districts in counties that changed boundaries between 1980 and 1990; and · 609 districts that crossed county lines and for which one or more of the county pieces had no counterpart in 1980.
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From page 119... ...
For the remaining 94 percent of districts, the two tabulations were exactly the same or differed by less than 5 percent, indicating that the same identification number is a reasonably good indicator of stability in school district boundaries. Summary of Evaluation Results: Absolute Differences Table 7-3 provides summary statistics for the three sets of school district estimates of poor school-age children in 1989 in comparison with the 1990 census estimates.
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From page 120... ...
Within-county shares method 18.0 55.4 using 1980 census shares applied to 1990 census county estimates (3) National stable shares method 28.7 71.7 using 1980 census shares applied to 1990 census national estimate 1989 County Estimates from 10.7 16.4 Census Bureau's County Model NOTES: School district estimates are based on 8,810 districts (9,243 districts in the 1980-1990 evaluation file minus 66 districts with estimated sample population of 30 or less in 1980 or 1990 and an additional 367 school districts with estimates of no children in poverty)
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From page 121... ...
It would be useful to remove this effect. As an extension of this analysis, the Census Bureau has produced graphs of three quantities: a measure of the difference between the school district estimates from the census estimates, which is the root mean square difference; the estimated sampling variability of the census estimates; and the resulting calculated root mean square error of the school district estimates and the census estimates adjusted for the sampling variability in the latter (Bell et al., 2000~.
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From page 122... ...
A reduction in the variability of the 1990 census estimates would permit not only a more accurate assessment of the within-county shares approach, but also an improvement in the 1995 school district estimates that are formed by applying 1990 census withincounty school district shares to the 1995 estimates from the county model. Summary of Evaluation Results: Algebraic Differences The evaluation also examined the algebraic differences by category of school district.
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From page 123... ...
For example, the method may over~under~predict, on average, the number of poor school-age children in larger school districts relative to smaller districts. The comparison of category algebraic differences for estimates from the Census Bureau's within-county shares method (1)
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From page 124... ...
Another possible source of information on poverty for school districts is data from the National School Lunch Program, which provides free and reduced-price meals to qualifying children. The Census Bureau decided that it could not use school lunch data in developing updated estimates of poor school-age children for school districts for two major reasons.
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From page 125... ...
The second reason for the Census Bureau not to use school lunch data in developing a consistent set of school district estimates nationwide is that counts of students approved for free lunches differ from poor school-age children in at least three respects, and the differences are probably not the same across · · 1- lunsa~ct~ons: · The eligibility standard to qualify for free lunches is family income that is less than 130 percent of the poverty threshold, which means that students approved for free lunches include near-poor as well as poor children. Children in families with incomes as high as 185 percent of poverty can receive reducedprice lunches.
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From page 126... ...
For example, it could follow the practice of the states that previously used school lunch data, solely or together or with census data, to distribute the Department of Education's Title I allocations for counties to school districts under the two-stage procedure. In effect, these states used a shares approach for school district estimates that is similar to the Census Bureau' s method, except that the district shares within counties were computed on the basis of contemporaneous school lunch data instead of 1990 census estimates of poor school-age children.
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From page 127... ...
, in which 1980 census within-county school district shares of poor school-age children were applied to 1989 county estimates from the 1990 census; a method in which 19891990 within-county school district shares of students approved to receive free lunches were applied to 1989 county estimates from the 1990 census; and a method in which 1989-1990 within-county school district shares of students approved to receive free or reduced-price lunches were applied to 1989 county estimates from the 1990 census. Table 7-4 provides summary statistics for the three sets of school district estimates of poor school-age children in 1989 for New York State compared with the 1990 census estimates for these districts.
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From page 128... ...
Difficulties in matching the school districts represented in the school lunch data set with the Census Bureau's set of school districts for Indiana prevented a full analysis. However, preliminary results were similar to the results from the New York State analysisthat is, estimates of within-county school district shares of poor school-age children in 1989 that were produced on the basis of 1980 census data and free lunch counts were roughly similar in accuracy when compared with 1990 census estimates of poor school-age children.
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From page 129... ...
Given that some set of estimates will be used to make Title I allocations, the panel believed that "inappropriate or unreliable" should be defined in a relative sense. Applying a relative definition, one could argue that, in the context of currently available information, a direct allocation procedure that uses the Census Bureau's school district estimates is at least as good as and perhaps preferable to the alternative, which would be to return to the two-stage process in which the states distributed the county allocations from the Department of Education to school districts by using a variety of data sources.
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From page 130... ...
This inconsistency could be a problem for direct allocation of concentration grants. Overall, the panel found four reasons to support use of the Census Bureau's school district estimates of poor school-age children for direct allocation of Title I allocation funds: the congressional mandate for direct allocations; the use of a uniform procedure to derive the Census Bureau's estimates; the somewhat greater accuracy of the Census Bureau's estimates of 1990 census shares compared with what the states could likely produce; and the absence of strong evidence that there are other, better data sources available for estimation.
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From page 131... ...
the Census Bureau's updated estimates from its county model, were maintained.l5 Direct allocation of basic grants to school districts by using the Census Bureau's within-county shares estimates has the same property of essentially respecting the county totals because the Census Bureau's estimation procedure controls the school district estimates to county estimates derived separately from its county model. The correspondence between the county totals from the twostage allocation process and those from the sums of direct allocations to the districts in each county will not be exact for several reasons.
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From page 132... ...
The average absolute and average proportional absolute differences from 1990 census school district estimates of poor school-age children were about the same for estimates that were developed by using free lunch counts with and without county controls. However, this analysis pertains to only one alternate data source in only one state.
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From page 133... ...
l9 Evaluation One of the reasons for the legislation mandating direct allocations to school districts was to target concentration grants to all eligible school districts, including those in ineligible counties. To assess the appropriateness and reliability of the Census Bureau's updated school district estimates of poor school-age children for direct allocation of concentration grants, the panel first examined the rate of agreement between the Census Bureau's within-county shares method (1)
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From page 134... ...
school district estimates are produced by applying 1980 census within-county school district shares of poor school-age children to the county model estimates for 1989 and controlling to the 1990 census national estimate of poor school-age children in 1989. SOURCE: Data from U.S.
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From page 135... ...
To focus on the issue of concentration grant eligibility for school districts with direct allocations versus the two-stage process, the panel examined the correspondence between the method (1) estimates and the 1990 census estimates for cross-classifications of 1989 school district and county school-age poverty rate categories; see Tables 7-6 and 7-7.
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From page 136... ...
school district estimates are produced by applying 1980 census within-county school district shares of poor school-age children to the county model estimates for 1989 and controlling to the 1990 census national estimate of poor school-age children in 1989. See text for discussion.
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From page 137... ...
school district estimates are produced by applying 1980 census within-county school district shares of poor school-age children to the county model estimates for 1989 and controlling to the 1990 census national estimate of poor school-age children in 1989. See text for discussion.
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From page 138... ...
Understanding the limits of the evaluations and the alternatives available, the panel concluded, on balance, that the use of the Census Bureau's school district estimates for direct allocations of concentration grants would be an improvement over the two-stage process. As intended by the 1994 legislation, many of the eligible districts that could not receive concentration grants with a two-stage allocation would receive such grants with direct allocations.
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From page 139... ...
For example, if a county has two school districts and only one district is eligible for a concentration grant according to the Census Bureau's estimates of poor school-age children, but both districts are eligible by using school lunch data, then the first district will lose some of its dollars to the second district. Presumably, similar situations occurred under the two-stage allocation process, in which school district concentration grants were allotted from county totals.23 However, such situations may be somewhat more likely to occur under direct allocations, which provide concentration grants to eligible districts in counties that do not meet the concentration grant threshold.
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From page 140... ...
Also, the panel concluded that, in general, it is desirable for both basic grant and concentration grant allocations to reflect the county model estimates in all states, including those that choose the option of redistributing the direct allocations for school districts under 20,000 population by using another data source. However, the panel recognized that there are uncertainties about the operation of the formulas: for example, the extent to which the sum of direct school district allocations for counties approximates the allocations that would result for counties under the two-stage process and the extent to which there may be significant reallocations of concentration grant dollars from poorer to less poor districts with county controls.
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