If you're looking for local school stories, it's easy to be put off by complex census tables. But this data will be published this summer for areas as big as states and as small as block groups in Census 2000 Summary File 3 data files. Usually census tracts, areas that average 1,500 homes, are the smallest standard areas worth analyzing. The school enrollment data list is a good example of how census data can yield lots of non-census stories.
Instead of looking at the data for stories, bring your knowledge of a subject – like your community's schools – to this data. See if this data can back up or knock down your hunches and ideas. Why do I need census enrollment data when I get it each year from the school district? No school superintendent has all the data on private schools or home schooling. School systems collect data by school, not neighborhood.
Census data from 1990 and 2000 lets you see broad patterns comparable around the state and nation. If you subtract an area's population age 18 and over and ages 3 to 5 from the sum of the two "not enrolled" categories, you get kids ages 5 to 18 who aren't in any school. You can calculate the public-private ratio for each neighborhood and map it to find school systems in trouble. Look at enrollment for graduate programs to see trends in adult education.
You can also identify college town student concentrations or explore how magnet and charter schools are changing neighborhoods. For deeper analysis, compare private school enrollment percentages with neighborhood poverty rates to find unexpected patterns. This data comes from the census long form, which about one household in six fills out. Because this data comes from a survey, each number has an error margin that should be understood to avoid overstating what the data says.