Capital outlay: Funds for the acquisition of land and buildings; building construction, remodeling, and additions; the initial installation or extension of service systems and other built-in equipment; site improvement; and architectural and engineering services.

Care from a center-based program: Includes care on a regular basis that occurs at Head Start, day care centers, nursery schools, or preschools.

Care from a nonrelative: Includes care on a regular basis by home child care providers, regular sitters, or neighbors. Excludes Head Start, day care centers, nursery schools, or preschools.

Care from a relative: Includes care on a regular basis from nonparental and nonguardian relatives (e.g., grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles) that occurs in or outside the child’s home.

Carnegie unit: A standard of measurement used for secondary education that represents the completion of a course that meets one period per day for 1 year.

Categorical revenue: All state revenues except general formula assistance and all federal revenues that are intended to address specific educational needs.

Catholic school: A private school over which a Roman Catholic church group exercises some control or provides some form of subsidy. Catholic schools for the most part include those operated or supported by a parish, a group of parishes, a diocese, or a Catholic religious order.

Center- or school-based programs: A care arrangement that encompasses supervised and organized activities in a nonresidential setting, such as the child’s school or a community center.

Certificate: An award granted for the successful completion of a subbaccalaureate program of study, which usually requires less than 2 years of full-time postsecondary study.

Charter school: (See Public charter school.)

Child cares for self: Includes self-care only.

Civic education: Civic education in school takes place across a wide range of courses, such as social studies, civics, history, government, global studies, and geography. It is concerned, in part, with the meaning of democracy in a national context, describing a sense of national identity, and with issues of social cohesion and social diversity.

Cohort: A group of persons who share one or more particular statistical or demographic characteristics, such as having received their bachelor’s degree in a certain year or range of years.

College: A postsecondary institution that offers a general or liberal arts education, usually leading to an associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, doctor’s, or first-professional degree. Junior colleges and community colleges are included.

College entrance examination score: Graduates’ SAT combined score, derived as either the sum of SAT verbal and math scores or an ACT composite score converted to an estimated SAT combined score.

Combined school: A combined school has one or more of grades K–6 and one or more of grades 9–12. For example, schools with grades K–12, 6–9, or 1–12 are classified as combined schools.

Community college: A commonly used term for a public 2-year institution, which provides 2-year programs that lead to a certificate or an associate’s degree or that fulfill part of the requirements for a bachelor’s degree or higher at a 4-year institution.

Community service: Volunteer activities undertaken in the school or community. Such community service includes any one-time or ongoing activity such as tutoring students, visiting senior citizens, and so on, but it does not include work for pay. It might be something done through one’s school, church or synagogue, or on one’s own.

Comparable Wage Index (CWI): A measure of the systematic, regional variations in the salaries of college graduates who are not educators. It can be used to adjust district-level finance data at different levels in order to make better comparisons across geographic areas.

Compensatory revenue: A type of categorical revenue that targets resources to school districts for instruction and other supplemental services for educationally disadvantaged students.

Comprehensive reform: Efforts to improve education for all students by establishing high content and performance standards and redesigning the various components of the educational system in a coordinated and coherent fashion to support students’ learning to the standards.

Condition of schools: The condition of schools can be classified into three groups depending on when they were built and renovated: “oldest” is defined as being built before 1970 and never renovated or renovated before 1980. “Moderate” is defined as being built between 1970 and 1984 or built before 1970 and renovated in 1980 or later. “Newest” is defined as being built after 1984, renovated or not.

Conservative Christian school: A school with membership in at least one of the following four associations: Accelerated Christian Education, American Association of Christian Schools, Association of Christian Schools International, or Oral Roberts University Education Fellowship.

Constant dollars: Dollar amounts that have been adjusted by means of price and cost indexes to eliminate inflationary factors and allow direct comparison across years. (See also Current dollars.)

Consumer price index (CPI): This price index measures the average change in the cost of a fixed-market basket of goods and services purchased by consumers.

Control of institutions: A classification of institutions of elementary/secondary or postsecondary education by whether the institution is operated by publicly elected or appointed officials (public control) or by privately elected or appointed officials and derives its major source of funds from private sources (private control).

Core curriculum or Core New Basics curriculum: The most commonly implemented form of the New Basics curriculum, which includes 4 years of English and 3 years each of mathematics, science, and social studies, but not the one-half year of computer science included in the New Basics curriculum. (See also New Basics curriculum.)

Core subjects: A Nation at Risk recommended that all students seeking a high school diploma be required to enroll in a core curriculum called the “New Basics.” The core subjects included in this plan are 4 units of English; 3 units each of science, social studies, and mathematics; and 0.5 units of computer science. (See also New Basics curriculum.)

Cost of college attendance: Cost of living for students attending postsecondary institutions, including tuition and fees, books, room and board, child care, transportation, and other miscellaneous expenses.

Current dollars: Dollar amounts that have not been adjusted to compensate for inflation. (See also Constant dollars.)

Current expenditures: Expenditures for operating local public schools and school districts, excluding capital outlay and interest on debt. These expenditures include such items as salaries for school personnel, fixed charges, student transportation, books and materials, and energy costs. Expenditures for state administration are excluded.

Current expenditures per pupil in enrollment: Current expenditures for the regular school term divided by the total number of students registered in a given school unit at a given time, generally in the fall of a year.

Current fund expenditures (postsecondary): Money spent to meet current operating costs, including salaries, wages, utilities, student services, public services, research libraries, scholarships, fellowships, auxiliary enterprises, hospitals, and independent operations. Excludes loans, capital expenditures, and investments.

Current fund revenues (postsecondary): Money received during the current fiscal year from revenue that can be used to pay obligations currently due and surpluses reappropriated for the current fiscal year.