Background Information
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) collected data about key education and civil rights issues for the 2015-16 school year from virtually every public school in the country through the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC).
The CRDC collects a variety of information including student enrollment and educational programs and services, most of which is disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency, and disability. For more general information about the CRDC (including past and future collections), visit the CRDC home page.
2015-16 CRDC
Documents released in 2018 that use the 2015-16 CRDC data to provide insights into equity in school districts are presented below:
- Press Release (issued April 24, 2018)
Public announcement of availability of 2015-16 CRDC data - STEM Course Taking Issue Brief PDF (2.4M) (issued April 24, 2018)
Highlights of the data from the 2015-16 CRDC on student access to STEM courses that foster college and career readiness - School Climate and Safety Issue Brief PDF (2.6M) (UPDATED May 17, 2019)
Highlights of the data from the 2015-16 CRDC on school climate and safety factors in the educational environment - STEM Data Story (issued November 8, 2018)
Story on the exploration of both access to and enrollment in Algebra I in K-12 public schools using data from the 2015-16 CRDC, developed by the InformED initiative.
Access 2015-16 CRDC Data
Data from the 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009-10, 2011-12, 2013-14, and 2015-16 CRDC surveys are available in the CRDC reporting tool at https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/crdc/civil-rights-data. The tool facilitates school- and district-level searches, viewing of data reports, and exploring and analyzing data.
To access a copy of the public-use data file:
- A public-use data file containing the entire 2015-16 CRDC in CSV format can be downloaded in a zip file (34M). Warning – Large file (UPDATED September 28, 2018).
For information about the data file:
- The Public-Use Data File User’s Manual for the 2015-16 CRDC provides information about the purpose of the study, the target population and respondents, data anomalies and considerations, differences in the restricted and public-use data, data collection procedures, the data file structure, and data processing.
- The Data Notes Addendum is a notice of known data quality issues for the 2015–16 CRDC Restraint and Seclusion Module. New!
- The 2015-16 CRDC school-level and district-level table layouts are also available for download.
OCR also provides a restricted-use data file for the education researcher. If you are interested in obtaining a license to access the 2015-16 CRDC restricted-use data file, then please visit the National Center for Education Statistics page for Restricted-use Data Applicants.
For additional information about the CRDC, please e-mail OCR at ocrdata@ed.gov.