When I was a young historian, back in the 1970s, I would occasionally search for a fact about American education in the nineteenth or early twentieth century to help me write an article or book. There was no Internet. I wasn’t sure which books had the right statistics. So I invariably called the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Education (actually there was no Department of Education until 1980 [Congress passed the legislation in 1979, and the Department became operational in 1980]; the NCES was the longstanding research and statistics arm of the U.S. Office of Education). The federal role in education began in 1867 under President Andrew Johnson with the creation of a Department of Education, whose sole mission was to collect and disseminate information on the condition and progress of education in the United States. In 1868, however, due to fears that the new Department might eventually seek to exert control over state and local education policy, the Department was demoted to the U.S. Office of Education. Its central purpose, the collection and dissemination of accurate information, is today the role of the NCES.
When I called for information, there was one person who knew where to find whatever I was looking for. Not opinion or interpretation, just the facts. His name was Vance Grant. He invariably took my calls and just as invariably found the answer, if it existed in federal records.
In 1991, I became Assistant Secretary in charge of OERI (the Office of Education Research and Improvement) and NCES was part of my agency–the most important part. I met Vance Grant, and I had an idea. Why not assemble all the historical data into a publication? With the help of the very able career staff at NCES, especially Tom Snyder and Vince Grant, and with the help of historian Maris Vinovskis, who had taken a leave at my request from the University of Michigan to work with OERI staff, the publication became a reality.
It is called 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait.
I can say now in retrospect that this publication was the most useful thing I did during my two years in the federal government.
You too can browse its pages and charts and graphs via the Internet to see the growth of education in the United States.
Although not many people know of its existence, it is still the only reliable source of historical data on American education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just downloaded it. Thanks again for the millionth time, Diane
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Is that the right link?
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Good morning Diane, The link in your post to 120 Years of American Education goes to an article in the Columbus (OH) Dispatch about a charter school grant. Wrong link? Sally Orme Cambridge, MA Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 14:03:00 +0000 To: srorme@msn.com
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I FIXED IT.
It is http://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf
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This had to be an immense amount of work.
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FLERP,
The idea was mine. The work was done by the excellent staff in the research division of the ED Department. Much credit goes to Tom Snyder of the ED Dept, and also Maris Vinovskis, who was on loan from the U of Michigan
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The link to the Statistical Portrait takes me to a Columbia Dispatch article on charter schools? By the way, Diane, I so appreciate your blog; we distributed copies of your recent article on the common core at our latest “History and Future of Public Education” session at the Washington State School Directors Association Annual Conference. As our first participant back in 2010, I thought you might be interested in hearing that our latest session was subtitled “School Directors and Ed ‘Reform,’ Standardized Testing, and Privatization–participants included Bess Altwerger, Anthony Cody, and Wayne Au. We continue to try and jar local directors out of their complacency around the threats to public education! Thanks for your leadership, as always, Elissa
Sent from my iPad
>
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thank you for this information “It was called 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait. I can say now in retrospect that this publication was the most useful thing I did during my two years in the federal government.
You too can browse its pages and charts and graphs via the Internet to see the growth of education in the United States.” my experience with NCES was exactly as you described. On every topic they had the information needed and it was always based on facts . If there were summaries, they were well formulated. There was a network of labs and centers that were helpful at that time ; Lee Burchinal had done a lot of early work getting that “diffusion” and dissemination concept in place. When it was philanthropy, it was the Kettering Foundation and I/D/E/A. I have been saddened to see the “drift” away from the type of work that NCES was doing at that time. With the developments of computers — Digital Equipment Corporation for example — we were given a “free” computer and DEC expected any place where they placed a computer to be a marketing arm….. It is an early case study of what is happening today with “infiltration” of the marketing types into the educational domain from Pearson, from Gates etc. because everyone knows that the miracle of the computer will solve everything and we must hypermarket the sales of computers.
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There was an interesting discussion this morning on npr about the intelligence the president gets – the biases, the agendas, the accuracy.
It would seem the same can be said about history and the historical recor that shapes what we know about the past.
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Holy wow! Thank you for this! Thank you for you.
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Thanks, Diane!! This is very interesting to look at.
With many of the graphs, it’s like following the plot of an engaging story. They mostly stop in ~1991, and I’m wondering where the trends follow after that. I feel like the publication needs to be updated.
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Agreed that this is a valuable resource. Thank you for asking that this be done. I agree with wdf1 that it would be valuable to have this updated. I’ll suggest to Mn members of Congress that they recommend this. Perhaps others will make similar requests.
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Oops, wrong link.
*Cathy A. Toll, Ph.D.* Graduate Program Coordinator Department of Literacy & Language University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh 800 Algoma Boulevard Oshkosh, WI 54901 920.424.2478
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Cathy, link fixed!
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Thank you Diane. Looks like a wonderful tool. Readers should also be aware of the historical value of two other annual and current NCES publications: “Digest of Education Statistics” and “Condition of Education.” They are also available on line. Using both, you can track per-pupil spending over the years, school opportunities for women, and growth in enrollment of ESL students and those with disabilities. For example the proportion of American adults with a high school diploma doubled between 1960 and 2012. Some of the time series date back to 1870.
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Link takes you to an article from an Ohio newspaper…
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Link now fixed!
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This book is a treasure.
Some of the data series in this book will be continued in the annual Digest of Education Statistics:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/
Diane probably knows better than almost anyone where to find continuations of various data series.
With federal statistics, it often happens that data are available, but not in a meaningfully or usefully analyzed form. The most important book of useful analysis of federal data, the Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract, lost federal support in 2011 and is now privately published.
This loss harmed the ability of the American public to think about public affairs. That’s my professional opinion as a librarian.
I hope that the same doesn’t happen to the Digest of Education Statistics. But I’m afraid that statistical agencies may be obliged to think first of how to provide data for specialists, not the general public, few of whom are aware of what they are missing.
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Thank you for initiating this publication. Some of the graphs are pretty remarkable.
I have used NCES information on the status of arts education in elementary schools and found it of variable utility in developing portraits of the status of arts education.
For example, some of the Fast Response Surveys are distributed to principals, less frequently to classroom teachers and to arts teachers. In at least two FRS surveys, the survey questions and categories for response produced an inflated view of the instructional time allocated for art. For example, NCES relied on a definition of a school year that exceeded the national norm of 180 days, the latter stat available from multiple sources. The surveys inflated or undercounted the amount of time allocated for instruction. response categories were set for hours per day and days per week. These are very blunt categories, require best guesses from respondents on how to allocate time for every other week instruction..a fairly common practice. Class periods are typically less than an hour, and daily instruction is rare at the elementary level.
The most interesting data came from discrepancies in the responses from classroom teachers, art teachers (specialists), and principals.
I just checked with ERIC as a repository for publications. The thesaurus of search terms is rich. I was pleased to find some paths to fairly arcane publications from the 1960s and 1980s, in addition to paths to publications from Achieve, Inc., including some little known reports and policy briefs that show how the CCSS were invented.
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I am excited to read this! Thank you!
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The link takes you to a story about Ohio charters.
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Eugenie try this for the PDF at NCES http://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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Genie, open the new link, not the original one
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Diane, so your boss 20 years ago was the same Lamar Alexander who is leading the cosmetic changes to NCLB. Too bad, he hasn’t had the same change of heart as you.
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Ah, it would be great to have an update to this.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Well Diane – today I understand why your such a well-spring of information. Finding your name on OERI’s “New Habits of Mind and Heart” report “Developing Leaders for Restructuring (Perestroika) Schools (Aug. 1991) is a revelation, since your name is not found in the March 1991 edition. AND I’ll bet you will put my comment in the trash bin as that is where all school reform should have found itself.
Sam A.
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