How to Look Up Your School's Federal Data Profile
Finding reliable data on any U.S. public school used to require navigating multiple NCES data portals, downloading large CSV files, and merging them by school ID. SchoolDataLookup consolidates the most useful NCES data into a single searchable database, making it straightforward to look up any of the 102,000+ public schools in the country.
Starting with Search
The fastest way to find a school is the school search. You can search by school name, city, state, or zip code. Full-text search handles partial names and common abbreviations. If you know a school\'s NCES school ID (NCESSCH), you can enter it directly. Results show the school name, district, city, state, grade range, and key stats.
What Each School Profile Shows
Each school profile page displays: enrollment (total and by grade where available), teacher FTE count and derived pupil-teacher ratio, free and reduced-price lunch eligibility rate, school type (charter, magnet, traditional), operational status, and grade range served. For schools with district finance data available, you can also see per-pupil expenditure context from the School District Finance Survey.
Browsing by State and District
If you want to compare schools within a state or district, start at the state index. Each state page shows top districts by enrollment, aggregate FRL rates, and school counts. District pages list all schools in the district with sortable data columns. This is useful for seeing how resources are distributed within a district, or comparing districts within a state.
Understanding the Data Vintage
SchoolDataLookup currently loads the 2024–25 CCD school year data (the most recent available). Finance data from the SDF has a longer lag and reflects FY 2023. When using this data for policy analysis or journalism, always note the data vintage — conditions may have changed, particularly in the post-ESSER funding environment where many districts are managing the end of COVID relief funds.
Connecting to Other Data Sources
For community context around any school, CensusDepth provides ACS demographic data at the census tract level — income, poverty rates, educational attainment, health insurance coverage. For teacher wage context, WageDepth shows BLS occupational salary data by metro area. Together, these sources provide a richer picture of any school\'s context than enrollment data alone.