Dependent student: (See Financial dependency.)

Derive meaning from text: A reading skill measured in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 (ECLS–K). An example of this reading skill is using background knowledge combined with sentence cues to understand the use of homonyms.

Diocesan school: A private Catholic school serving students in one or more grades K–12 that is the domain of a bishop.

Distance education: Instructional programs or courses in which the instructor and students need not be in the same physical place, particularly those relying on computers, audio, or video technology as the medium for delivery and, sometimes, for two-way interaction.

Doctoral degree: An earned degree carrying the title of Doctor. The Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) is the highest academic degree and requires mastery within a field of knowledge and demonstrated ability to perform scholarly research. Other doctoral degrees are awarded for fulfilling specialized requirements in professional fields, such as education (Ed.D.), musical arts (D.M.A.), business administration (D.B.A.), and engineering (D. Eng. or D.E.S.). Many doctoral degrees in both academic and professional fields require an earned master’s degree as a prerequisite. First-professional degrees, such as M.D. and D.D.S., are not included under this heading. (See also First-professional degree.)

Doctoral institutions: Includes 4-year postsecondary institutions that award at least a doctoral or first-professional degree in one or more programs.

Dropout: The term is used to describe both the event of leaving school before graduating and the status of an individual who is not in school and who is not a graduate. Transferring from a public school to a private school, for example, is not regarded as a dropout event. A person who drops out of school may later return and graduate but is called a “dropout” at the time he or she left school. At the time the person returns to school, he or she is called a “stopout.” Measures to describe these often complicated behaviors include the event dropout rate (or the closely related school persistence rate), the status dropout rate, and the high school completion rate. (See also Longitudinal dropout rate and Status dropout rate.)