Some observations on The Condition of Education (1976 edition)

The Condition of Education 1976 assembles data in table and chart on a wider range of educational data than have appeared in previous Federal reports, organizing them around issues and divisions of the U.S. educational establishment. The elementary/secondary and higher education levels are more adequately represented than other system levels. Six system properties are introduced to evaluate the degree of representation in the volume: environment, structure, culture, output, throughput, and input. System output is best represented by the volume, and system culture is greatly under-represented; otherwise, the 124 educational indicators are fairly well distributed across system properties. System properties by educational level again reveal culture to be inadequately measured. Temporally, 70 of the 124 indicators are presented in more than 2 points in time but only 13 indicators are projected into the future. Utilization of this classification system reveals areas of the statistical system needing greater emphasis, particularly system demographics, properties of kindergarten/nursery, post-secondary noncollegiate, graduate/professional, and adult-education levels, a need for more indicators of cultural variables, and a need to interrelate system output with input and throughput.