District Factor Group
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{{refimprove, date=February 2013 Membership in a District Factor Group (DFG) is an indicator of the socioeconomic status of citizens in school districts of
New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
. DFGs were first developed by the
New Jersey Department of Education The New Jersey Department of Education (NJ DOE) administers state and federal aid programs affecting more than 1.4 million public and non-public elementary and secondary school children in the state of New Jersey. The department is headquartered ...
in 1975 for the purpose of comparing student performance on statewide assessments across demographically similar school districts. The categories are updated every ten years when the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
releases the data from each new census. Since the DFGs were created, they have been used for purposes other than analyzing test score performance, including their role in determining the initial group of districts that were classified as
Abbott District ''Abbott'' districts are school districts in New Jersey that are provided remedies to ensure that their students receive public education in accordance with Constitution of New Jersey, the state constitution. They were created in 1985 as a resul ...
s. Additionally, subsequent to the Abbott IV court ruling, the DFGs were also used to define the group of school districts which would receive Abbott v. Burke parity remedy aid. The DFGs represent an approximate measure of a community’s relative
socioeconomic status Socioeconomic status (SES) is a measurement used by economics, economists and sociology, sociologsts. The measurement combines a person's work experience and their or their family's access to economic resources and social position in relation t ...
(SES). The classification system provides a useful tool for examining student achievement and comparing similarly situated school districts in other analyses. The DFGs do not have a primary or significant influence in the school funding formula beyond the legal requirements associated with parity aid provided to the Abbott districts. In updating the DFGs using the data from the 2000 Census, efforts were made to improve the methodology while preserving the underlying meaning of the DFG classification system. Based on discussions with representatives from school districts and experimenting with various methods, the DFGs were calculated using the following six variables that have been found to be most closely related to SES: #Percent of adults with no high school diploma #Percent of adults with some college education #Occupational status #Unemployment rate #Percent of individuals in poverty #Median family income.


DFG categories

School districts in New Jersey are categorized into District Factor Groups, which describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the local district. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J. Of the 549 districts statewide, the latest District Factor Groups categorized using data from the United States Census 2000 (with some updated information) breakdown as follows: * A: 39 * B: 67 * CD: 67 * DE: 83 * FG: 89 * GH: 76 * I: 103 * J: 25


References


New Jersey Department of Education
Education in New Jersey