Data Elements for DCPS Teachers & Schools
Demographic data will help reveal if there are any underlying patterns that can be attributed to a specific
subset of teachers, rather than school-level factors.
Individual level demographic variables that were analyzed include:
• race/ethnicity
• sex
• age
• number of years of teaching experience
• number of years of administrative experience
• degree level
• employment location
School-level variables that were analyzed include:
• number of teachers
• number of administrators
• school type
• average years of teacher experience, excluding administrators
• percent of nonwhite students
• percent of students eligible for free or reduced lunch prices
• percent of points earned towards school grade
• percent of teachers in-field and out-of-field
• percent of teachers who stayed at the same school
• percent of teachers who left their school
Individual Demographic Data Elements – Race and Ethnicity
Several challenges arose when considering how to best measure the impact of race and ethnicity on
teacher turnover. While FLDOE collects information on race and ethnicity in the same manner at both the
student level and teacher level, the district did not publish teacher race and ethnicity in the same manner as
FLDOE. There are seven race and ethnicity groups identified by FLDOE. The six distinct racial groups are
White, Black or African American, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and American Indian or
Alaskan Native, as well as a category for people who have two or more races. The one ethnic group identified
by FLDOE is Hispanic/Latino. It is unclear how data is aggregated into the two or more races category.
While the district did provide race and ethnicity data, it was reported at the individual teacher level
rather than at the school level. Concatenated data was not used at the teacher level because the methods of
concatenation employed by FLDOE were not available. Further study building on the work of Boyd,
Lankford, Loeb, Ronfeldt, and Wyckoff could examine the impact of student-teacher race match on teacher
turnover within DCPS.
School Demographic Data Elements – Race and Ethnicity
Student demographic data is reported by FLDOE at the school level. In order to protect student
identity, demographic subgroups with fewer than ten members are not reported out at the school level. In
practical terms, in nearly every school there are two or more racial or ethnic categories for which data are not
available due to small subgroup size. In addition, information about ethnicity is not reported separately from
race.
The missing data elements outlined previously, in combination with the varying reporting practices
used between the district and the state, meant that the only calculated variable related to race and
ethnicity that could be used was the percent of nonwhite students. While this number certainly obscures the
true diversity of a school’s population, it does provide an approximate value that can be analyzed further.
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