Data sources are arranged in alphabetical order by the abbreviations used in the Item Definitions section.

CPTD, Self Report: The Comptroller's Property Tax Division 1998 Self Report. This report contains local tax roll assessed values for property, levy amounts, and tax rate information for all school districts with taxable property. Item 62; Exhibit 20.

CPTD, Study: The Comptroller's Property Tax Division 1998 Property Value Study, July 1, 1998. This study provides local tax roll property values as of January 1, 1998 for each district by category of land use. The comptroller's reevaluated values by category of land use are also provided. Items 61, 62; Exhibit 19, Exhibit 20.

Division of Performance Reporting: The TEA division that is responsible for producing the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) reports and for determining the accountability ratings for schools and school districts each year. Computer programs are written by staff in this division to analyze the TAAS results, dropout rates, and attendance rates that are published in the AEIS in order to determine the accountability rating. See the TEA publication 1999 Accountability Manual: The 1999 Accountability Rating System for Texas Public Schools and School Districts. Accountability ratings in this publication were current as of February 16, 2000. Item 1; Exhibit 13, Exhibit 14, Exhibit A.

Financial Audit Report: The TEA data files created from reports submitted to the TEA by auditors hired by local districts. The December 1998 reports used in this edition reflect district audited financial data from the 1997-98 school year. In addition to fund balance information, these reports provide total outstanding debt for bonds and loans, delinquent tax information, and revenue and expenditure amounts. School-level information is not provided. Items 69, 70.

Foundation Master: A TEA data source that contains detailed information about state funding amounts and calculations for each entity receiving state dollars under the Foundation School Program. Item 63.

GED File: A TEA data file containing information about student performance on the General Educational Development (GED) tests. Unlike the information in most other TEA data files, which is reported annually, receipt of a GED certificate is reported as soon as the test is scored as passing. Candidates take GED tests year-round at over 200 centers located throughout the state in school districts, colleges and universities, and education service centers. The University of Texas Scoring Center scores the results and transmits them electronically to the TEA. Items 14, 15, 17.

Organization Master Files: The TEA data files containing basic organizational attributes about schools and school districts, including name and identification number, county name and number, Education Service Center region, State Board of Education district, and type of district (regular FSP, special statutory, state-administered, or charter). These files are created from PEIMS record types 010-District Organization and 020-Campus Organization, as well as other non-PEIMS sources. Item 2; Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2, Exhibit 3, Exhibit B, and Exhibit E.

PEIMS: Information in this document from the Public Education Information Management System was reported either in the spring (submission 3) of the 1997-98 year, or in the fall (submission 1) of the 1998-99 year. In submission 3, due to the agency by June of 1998, districts reported yearlong student information. In submission 1, districts reported data as of October 30, 1998. The budgeted financial data reported at that time was for the entire 1998-99 school year. All record types described below were received in submission 1 of school year 1998-99 with the exception of record type 400, which is from submission 3 of school year 1997-98. For more information about the PEIMS reporting requirements see the 1998-99 Public Education Information Management System Data Standards.

030: Budget Amounts: Amounts budgeted by the district, or campus if appropriate, reported by fund, function, object, and in some cases by program intent. Items 64-68, 70-87; Exhibit 19, Exhibit 21, Exhibit 22, Exhibit 23, and Exhibit C.

040: Staff Basic Information: Information about each employee's sex, ethnicity, years of experience, and post-secondary degree. Items 43, 47-49, 51-54; Exhibit 17.

050: Employment Characteristics: Information for each employee such as tenure and full-time equivalency status, and employing district identification number. Items 31-38, 44, 50.

060: Payroll: The payroll amounts paid to each employee. Both pay for regular duties and any supplement amounts are reported by fund, function, object, and program intent. Items 39-42; Exhibit 16 and Exhibit 18.

081: Permit: The type of permit, issue date, role of the individual working under the permit, permit subject area, population served, and permit grade range. Item 46.

090: Staff Responsibilities: The duties performed by each professional and paraprofessional employee. This excludes auxiliary staff. Districts report each class schedule for the employees who are teachers. Items 32-38, 45, 50, 55-60; Exhibit 16, Exhibit 18, and Exhibit D.

110: Student Enrollment: Enrollment information about each student, including the student's grade, economically disadvantaged status, and indicators of the special programs in which the student participates. Items 2-12, 15, 17, 44, 45, 61, 63, 65, 79, 81; Exhibit 1, Exhibit 4, Exhibit 5, Exhibit 6, Exhibit 7, and Exhibit B.

203: Leaver Data: Information about all students served in grades 7-12 in 1997-98 who did not continue in enrollment in the same district the following fall. Leavers are students who graduated, dropped out, or left school for other non-dropout reasons, such as transferred to another public school district. This record contains last campus of enrollment, special education indicator, economically disadvantaged indicator, up to three leaver reasons, and additional graduation information for graduates. Items 14-17, 27; Exhibit 7, Exhibit 8, Exhibit 9, and Exhibit 14.

400: Basic Attendance Data: Information about each student for each of the six, six-week attendance reporting periods in the year. For each student, for each six-week period, districts report grade level, number of days taught, days absent, and total eligible and ineligible days present. Items 13-15; Exhibit 14.

SAT I / ACT File: With permission from public school districts, a file is created by the TEA from scores obtained from the College Board's SAT I and the ACT, Inc. (Enhanced) ACT assessment. Both testing programs typically release summary test score statistics to the TEA, the media, and the public each August for Texas seniors who graduated during that school year. However, the Texas public school graduation data from PEIMS (which are necessary for computing the percentage of graduates tested) are available later in the following school year. Thus, given the annual reporting calendar, the test scores in this document are for the class of 1998 graduating seniors. Items 27-30; Exhibit 15.

Special Education SSAs: An annual TEA data file maintained by the division of Special Education which indicates for each district whether or not the district is a member or fiscal agent of a special education shared services arrangement (SSA), how many members are in the SSA, and if applicable, the SSA name. No item number; indicator that follows district name.

TAAS: The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills results for reading, writing, and mathematics for grades 3-8, and 10 from the spring 1999 test administration. The TAAS files also include grade 8 science and social studies results and End-of-course performance for Biology, Algebra I, English II, and US History. The results for students who were not enrolled in the district as of October 30, 1998 are excluded from the statistics in this publication. TAAS test files contain percent passing by grade and subject and can be further analyzed by several characteristics of the students tested. Items 18-26; Exhibit 10, Exhibit 11, Exhibit 12, and Exhibit 14.