NAEP Technical DocumentationLong-Term Trend Private School Sampling Frame

The private school frame was developed from the 2001-02 Private School Survey (PSS) carried out by the Census Bureau for NCES. PSS is a biennial mail survey of all private schools in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. The PSS frame of schools comprises a list frame and an area frame. The list frame is a combination of the 2000-01 PSS frame and more up to date lists from State Education Agencies, private school associations and other easily accessible sources. To improve the coverage of the PSS list frame the Census Bureau conducted a more labor-intensive search for private schools in a random sample of areas throughout the United States. The areas were single counties or groups of counties sampled from an area frame constructed from all counties in the nation. Within each selected area a complete list of private schools was gathered using information from the Yellow Pages, religious institutions, Local Education Agencies, Chambers of Commerce and local government offices. Schools not already on the list frame were identified and were added to the frame of private schools. A weight component was computed so that the area frame schools represent all schools absent from the list frame, not just those in the selected areas. The table below provides totals analogous to those of the public schools, within private school type categories. There were 803 smaller schools with no known affiliation or estimated age enrollments. These 803 smaller schools were not included on the frame for the ‘main’ private school sample, but part of a supplementary sample described in School Sample Selection for Private Schools with Unknown Characteristics. The table below presents counts of private schools within the sampled PSUs on the frame by school affiliation (these are simple counts, not weighted counts), and estimated nine-, thirteen-, and seventeen-year-olds across these schools, using as a weight the inverse of the PSU probability of selection.

Number and enrollment by age of private schools in the sampling frame: By school affiliation, 2004
School affiliation	School count in sampled PSUs	Enrolled 9-year-olds (in U.S.)	Enrolled 13-year-olds (in U.S.)	Enrolled 17-year-olds (in U.S.)
Total	17,130	416,000	393,500	305,600
Roman Catholic	4,080	196,100	194,700	149,900
Lutheran	860	19,000	16,600	4,400
Conservative Christian	2,120	65,700	58,400	38,700
Other religious	3,430	79,500	71,900	55,700
Other nonreligious private	5,840	55,600	51,900	57,000
Unknown affiliation	800	—	†	†
— Not available. † Not applicable. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2004.

Last updated 16 March 2009 (RF)

Printer-friendly Version