The National Center for Education Statistics has released its revised 8-category locale code classification system. The new system incorporates changes in the Office of Management and Budget’s definition of “rural” that were adopted for the 2000 Decennial Census. At first glance this new classification scheme appears to be an improvement.
Locale codes are measures of a school’s location relative to populous areas. Every U.S. school is identified into one 8 categories that range from large city to rural. The new urban-centric locale codes follow the same logic as the original locale code system, but prioritize population size and distance from an urbanized area. They include four basic categories (city, suburban, town, rural) each of which is subdivided by either size or distance from an urbanized area.
Users can download a new file that includes geocoding information for 100,593 public schools reported on the Common Core of Data School Universe Survey for the 2003-04 school year. The information includes the NCES school identification code; latitude and longitude of the reported address; and two locale codes. I've never seen anyone make use of the latitude and longitude data so I'm hoping someone will figure out a project soon.
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