NYFERA uses public education information to help readers understand New York schools, districts, funding, and educational outcomes. This methodology establishes standards for selecting sources, identifying institutions, processing figures, making comparisons, and explaining limitations.
It applies to data presented in articles, school and district profiles, tables, charts, downloads, and interactive tools. Individual resources should provide additional methodological notes whenever their calculations or scope require more detail.
Sources must be identifiable and appropriate to the measure. Priority is given to the agency or institution responsible for publishing the information, together with its documentation.
Relevant sources include the New York State Education Department, NYC Public Schools, the National Center for Education Statistics, school districts, charter authorizers, and official school publications. Research publications may provide additional context, but their findings must remain distinguishable from administrative records.
NYSED provides glossaries, business rules, and database documentation explaining definitions, reporting timelines, suppression, and aggregation. The documentation associated with the relevant reporting year must guide interpretation.
When sources disagree, the difference must be investigated rather than resolved by automatically selecting the newest or most favorable figure. Different reporting periods, populations, definitions, or revisions may explain the discrepancy.
Each resource must make its coverage clear. A source note should identify, where applicable:
- The publishing organization and dataset or report.
- The source link and release version.
- The school year, fiscal year, cohort, or observation date.
- The institutions and student groups included.
- The retrieval or verification date.
- Any filtering, exclusions, or calculations performed by NYFERA.
A page’s update date must not be presented as the year represented by its data. Different indicators on the same profile may refer to different periods; those periods must be labeled individually.
School and district matching must use more than a similar name. Official identifiers—such as BEDS codes, NYSED institution IDs, NCES IDs, and NYC school codes—should be retained separately and matched using supporting records.
These identifier systems must not be treated as interchangeable. Names, addresses, grade spans, district relationships, and operational status provide additional checks.
Campus-level, school-level, district-level, and charter-network information must remain distinct. Renamings, mergers, closures, relocations, and reorganizations require review before records are combined into a historical series. Uncertain matches must be excluded or clearly flagged.
Processing must preserve the meaning of the source. Permitted preparation includes standardizing display formats, recognizing documented missing-value codes, checking identifiers, and removing confirmed duplicate records.
Validation should check for unexpected duplicates, impossible values, inconsistent units, incorrect reporting periods, and unexplained changes. Large changes require investigation; they are not automatically errors.
Published results should remain traceable to the source release and the transformations used. Unresolved discrepancies must be disclosed or withheld from analysis.
Unavailable values must remain distinguishable from zero.
| Display status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Zero | The source explicitly reports a value of zero |
| Not available | A usable value is unavailable in the selected source |
| Not reported | The source identifies the measure as unreported |
| Suppressed | The publisher withholds the value under its disclosure rules |
| Not applicable | The measure does not apply to the institution or population |
| Not comparable | A meaningful comparison cannot be supported |
Source-specific symbols must be interpreted using their accompanying documentation. A blank cell must not be assumed to mean zero.
Suppressed values must not be estimated, reconstructed from totals, or exposed through combinations of tables and filters. The same protection applies to downloadable outputs.
Calculations must be explicit and reproducible. Whenever NYFERA calculates a value, the measure, inputs, denominator, and rounding approach must be explained.
For example:
| Calculation | Method |
|---|---|
| Percentage | Relevant count ÷ eligible denominator × 100 |
| Absolute change | Later value − earlier value |
| Percentage-point change | Later percentage − earlier percentage |
| Percent change | (Later value − earlier value) ÷ earlier value × 100 |
An increase from 60% to 66% equals 6 percentage points, or a 10% relative increase. These descriptions must not be substituted for one another.
Percent change is undefined when the earlier value is zero. Calculations should use the most precise available inputs, with rounding applied for display. Results derived from rounded source figures must be identified where that affects interpretation.
Combined rates should use compatible underlying counts and denominators. School percentages must not be averaged and presented as a district or statewide rate without a justified method. Overlapping student groups must not be added together as though they were mutually exclusive.
Comparisons require compatible definitions. Review must consider reporting year, grade, subject, assessment, cohort, student group, participation, and institutional scope.
Graduation measures require particular care: a four-year cohort rate and an extended-year rate answer different questions. Enrollment snapshots likewise cannot automatically be compared with counts of everyone served during a year.
Assessment scale scores must not be treated as interchangeable across grades or subjects. NYSED’s technical documentation identifies these comparability limits.
A change in proficiency rates does not, by itself, establish growth among the same students. Changes in assessments, standards, participation, or student composition must be considered before describing a trend.
Financial comparisons must identify what spending includes. School-level and district-level figures, instructional spending and total spending, and budgeted amounts and actual expenditures must remain distinguishable.
NYSED’s report-card documentation describes specific expenditure categories, exclusions, and pupil counts used in its per-pupil measures. NYFERA must follow the documentation for the selected release rather than substitute a convenient enrollment figure.
Inflation-adjusted analysis must name the price index, base year, and conversion method. Figures without that adjustment must be described as nominal amounts.
Interpretation must acknowledge limits. Public data describe selected characteristics and outcomes; they do not capture every aspect of teaching, student experience, or school suitability. Small groups can show substantial percentage changes, and aggregate patterns do not establish an individual student’s experience.
Descriptive associations must not be presented as proof of causation. Any composite rating or ranking requires a separate published methodology explaining its selection criteria, weights, missing-data treatment, and limitations.
Automated processing and AI assistance remain subject to these standards. AI-generated statements are not data sources.
Material source revisions, processing errors, and changes affecting conclusions must be addressed under NYFERA’s Corrections Policy. Readers can report concerns through our Contact Us page, identifying the affected resource, measure, reporting period, and supporting evidence.