This report presents information about public elementary and secondary education for the 2003–04 school year. The data were provided by state education agencies through the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system, a universe data collection that includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Defense (DoD) dependents schools (overseas and domestic), Puerto Rico, and the other jurisdictions of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The tables include data for all of these entities; however, the U.S. totals in the tables and the text discussion include only the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Data are collected through CCD on three levels: the school, local education agency, and state level.  Data from all three levels are presented in this report.

Sections of this report include Selected Findings, followed by four appendixes.  The appendixes include technical notes (appendix A), definitions of key terms used in this report (appendix B), supplemental data tables (appendix C), and data tables that show the extent of missing and reported data items by state (appendix D).