NCES Private School Universe Survey (PSS) Table Library

Project Title:  View help for Project Title NCES Private School Universe Survey (PSS) Table Library

Summary:  View help for Summary

About the Private School Universe Survey (PSS)

Overview

With increasing concern about alternatives in education, the interest and need for data on private education has also increased. NCES has made the collection of data on private elementary and secondary schools a priority.The purposes of this data collection activity are; a) to generate biennial data on the total number of private schools, teachers, and students; and b) to build an accurate and complete list of private schools to serve as a sampling frame for NCES surveys of private schools. The PSS began with the 1989-90 school year and has been conducted every two years since.

Design

The target population for the survey consists of all private schools in the U.S. that meet the NCES definition (i.e., a private school is not supported primarily by public funds, provides classroom instruction for one or more of grades K-12 or comparable ungraded levels, and has one or more teachers. Organizations or institutions that provide support for home schooling without offering classroom instruction for students are not included.). The survey universe is composed of schools from several sources. The main source is a list frame, initially developed for the 1989-90 survey. The list is updated periodically by matching it with lists provided by nationwide private school associations, state departments of education, and other national private school guides and sources. Additionally, an area frame search is conducted by the Bureau of the Census.

Components

The PSS consists of a single survey that is completed by administrative personnel in private schools. Information collected includes: religious orientation; level of school; size of school; length of school year, length of school day; total enrollment (K-12); number of high school graduates, whether a school is single-sexed or coeducational and enrollment by sex; number of teachers employed; program emphasis; existence and type of kindergarten program.

Policy and Research Issues

The Private School Survey produces data similar to that of the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) for the public schools. The data are useful for a variety of policy- and research-relevant issues, such as the growth of religiously-affiliated schools, the length of the school year, the number of private high school graduates, and the number of private school students and teachers.

Data Organization

This page collects all of the tables in the PSS tables library. The tables are organized into folders by year, and then further folders by category. Finally, each table has its own folder, which contains one or two excel files depending on the table.

Every year folder has a catalog csv that provides a crosswalk between the folder names and the original table names, except for the 2001-2002 folder, where a catalog could not be generated.

Additionally, the documentation folder has all documentation and methodological documents found here: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/pssdata.asp, though not data files.

The reports folder contains reports related to PSS found via searching NCES's resource library.

Original Distribution URL:  View help for Original Distribution URL https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/tables2122.asp

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms private schools; religious schools; high schools; elementary schools

Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States

Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1989 – 2022

Universe:  View help for Universe Private schools in the United States.

Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) survey data

Collection Notes:  View help for Collection Notes Data downloaded 2025-07 to 2025-08-05.