By the Numbers

SAS helps Census Bureau create school district demographics

State and local governments take primary responsibility for governing and funding US public schools, but they rely on the federal government these days for important snapshots of local demographic landscapes - information that often helps to inform local school policies.

Using billions of pieces of information gathered in the 2000 decennial head count, the US Census Bureau uses SAS software to prepare and review intricate mosaics of school districts that are as insightful and varied as the imaginations of the millions of schoolchildren in classrooms across the country.

"The Census Bureau creates wonderfully rich school district demographic data," explains Doug Geverdt, a Demographer in the Bureau's Population Division. Geverdt is the project manager for the 2000 Census School District Tabulation, an initiative sponsored by the US Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to provide 2000 census data for the nation's public school systems.

Geverdt and the Census Bureau used SAS to develop the School District Tabulation, and they relied on the SAS Bridge for ESRI to link demographic data in SAS to school district boundary files in ArcGIS – geographic information system software from ESRI, the industry leader in spatial analytics. The SAS Bridge for ESRI provides a link between SAS and ArcGIS to extend analytical and business intelligence to data that requires spatial evaluation.

The Power of Place
While SAS helps to makes sense of information, the pieces of some analytic puzzles aren't always easy to see. "Sometimes knowing where a district is can help to explain unique characteristics of its population," Geverdt explains. "School districts are spatial entities as well as social organizations, so it can be extremely helpful to see demographic data in their geographic context. A simple map can explain a lot." Such as the school district in Ohio where almost 75 percent of the community's population reported not being a high school graduate on the 2000 census.

"When you run across an outlier like that, you want to make sure the value is legitimate and not the result of a data production problem. A quick map can show district location, but the spatial context can also offer hints about features or conditions that might help to explain demographic anomalies," says Geverdt.

In this case, the location of the district in rural, east-central Ohio hinted at the possible presence of an Amish community – a tight-knit cultural group that often doesn't continue with formal education past the secondary level. The SAS Bridge helped to confirm this place-based hypothesis by allowing Geverdt to quickly map Ohio's Amish population centers with educational attainment values and district boundaries using SAS-based census data files.

"It's a simple example," Geverdt notes, "but it's nice to have a tool that allows for quick visualization and query of SAS data in a GIS. It makes it easy to explore."

Feedback Spawns Solution
The initial SAS Bridge for ESRI functionality came about in part as a result of Geverdt's user feedback to SAS' Research and Development division. It all started when Geverdt, corresponding via e-mail with a SAS programmer, asked if there was a way to bridge SAS with ESRI's ArcGIS.

"I just wanted to be more productive," Geverdt says. "SAS listened and created the functionality I needed."

As a result, other SAS and GIS users at the Census Bureau are beginning to explore how the SAS Bridge for ESRI can be used to analyze and review additional Census geodemographic data.

Better Data, Better Decisions
One of Geverdt's primary aims is to provide the means by which parents, teachers, students, school administrators, and lawmakers from Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue can review and evaluate the demographics of public and private education at the elementary and secondary level.

Local school systems tend to have reliable, but limited demographic information about students who are enrolled. However, they often have only an anecdotal feel for the demographics of their students' parents, children in the district who may attend private schools, or households in the district that do not have children enrolled. Geverdt's work helps to quantify and clarify these characteristics.

"Our mission was to collect and provide relevant, high quality data about the population and economic conditions in local school districts including detailed demographics for children, parents, and households. The SAS Bridge helped us map results and check the integrity of our data production," Geverdt explains.

The special tabulation includes more than 100,000 demographic attributes per school district - factors such as English-speaking ability, language spoken at home, ancestry, race, ethnicity, age, poverty status, family income, housing conditions, etc. - features that offer a detailed portrait of the local demographic landscape.

"This is one of the largest special tabulations developed by the Census Bureau from the 2000 census," Geverdt says. "It is also one of the largest, most current data sets of children's demographics available from the federal government."

Demographics at Their Fingertips
The public and policy makers alike have the ability to explore the demographic conditions for any public school district in the country via online query at the NCES Web site. Geverdt says the site will eventually provide about 2 billion demographic elements developed for the 2000 Census School District Tabulation.

"These data can provide insight to thousands of potential questions," says Geverdt.

The information could help local school administrators craft better community outreach strategies by showing the non-English languages spoken by parents in the district and the number of parents speaking each language. Or they may help schools assess the need for special programs like adult English classes. Census commuting data could show the number of parents who might find it difficult to participate in school-based activities due to particularly long commutes, or perhaps because they don't own a vehicle and may have to rely on public transportation.

With the help of SAS, school administrators now have access to Census data that may help document socio-economic conditions for grant applications, inform discussions of population growth and new school construction, or provide fundamental demographic information needed to determine funding or program eligibility.

"School districts are a key component of the US educational system," Geverdt says, "and we hope these data will help to improve educational opportunities for all children by helping policy makers and the public make more informed decisions."

Copyright © SAS Institute Inc. All Rights Reserved.