Microproduct data guideintermediate

NCES Common Core of Data

Public school and district directory records for building local school maps and enrollment-directory tools.

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At a glance

Difficulty
Intermediate — some data preparation helps
Size
Tiny · 0.01–0.05 GB
Formats
CSV, ZIP
Access
Download
API key
Not required
Provider
National Center for Education Statistics
Updates
Annual
Data terms
U.S. Government public data / federal copyright guidance

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

CCD preliminary directory files list public schools with NCES IDs, addresses, and operating status. Start with the latest school-year ZIP from the files table and filter to one state. The filename changes every year, and a directory record is not a performance rating.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • An internet connection
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Open the CCD Public School Universe files page and copy the latest preliminary directory ZIP URL.
  2. 2.Download that ZIP and identify the school directory table inside it.
  3. 3.Filter to one state before mapping names and coordinates.
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3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

import io
import zipfile
import pandas as pd
import requests

url = "https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/Data/zip/ccd_sch_029_2425_w_0a_051425.zip"
response = requests.get(url, timeout=60)
response.raise_for_status()
with zipfile.ZipFile(io.BytesIO(response.content)) as archive:
    table_name = next(name for name in archive.namelist() if name.lower().endswith((".csv", ".txt")))
    with archive.open(table_name) as table:
        schools = pd.read_csv(table, dtype=str, encoding="latin-1")
colorado = schools[schools["ST"] == "CO"].copy()
colorado["retrieved_at_utc"] = pd.Timestamp.now(tz="UTC")
print(colorado.head(20))
4

Test a useful signal

Map open public schools in one state

Test whether a CCD directory extract can power a local school finder.

  1. 01Filter to Colorado and keep school name, city, status, and coordinates when present.
  2. 02Count open schools by city and flag missing coordinates.
  3. 03Explain that directory fields are not test scores and that the ZIP filename changes each school year.

Dataset details

National Center for Education Statistics is a government source. Last verified 2026-08-17. Temporal coverage: annual school-year directories.

Theme

Demographics & Development

Domains

EducationDemographics

Data types

Registry DataTabularGeospatial

Tasks

MappingCommunity ComparisonProvider Comparison

Geography

United States

Formats

CSVZIP

Provider

National Center for Education Statistics

Data terms

U.S. Government public data / federal copyright guidance