The indicators in this section of The Condition of Education measure aspects of the context of learning in elementary and secondary schools. Such aspects include the content of learning and expectations for student performance, the climate for learning and other organizational aspects of schools, characteristics of teachers, processes of instruction, mechanisms of choice in education, and financial resources. There are 37 indicators in this section: 13, prepared for this year's volume, appear on the following pages, and all 37, including indicators from previous years, appear on the Web (see the List of Indicators on The Condition of Education website in the Contents section for a full list of the indicators).

The first subsection considers the climate for learning, which is shaped by different factors in the school environment, including measures of student and parent attitudes; the concentration of poverty and of racial and ethnic groups in public schools; the pervasiveness of violence in public schools; and student discipline, reflected by the percentages of student suspensions and expulsions. Indicators in this volume present measures of these last three factors, while the Web displays indicators for the full subsection.

The indicators in the second subsection look at teachers and school staff. Indicators on the Web examine the characteristics of principals, teachers, student support staff, and guidance counselors, while an indicator in this volume examines international comparisons on the extent and nature of teacher training in certain subject areas.

The third subsection focuses on learning opportunities that are afforded to children. Indicators in this volume measure parent and family involvement in education and student/teacher ratios in public schools. Additional indicators on the Web highlight participation in early literacy activities, the availability of advanced-level academic courses, and afterschool activities.

Subsection four looks at special programs that serve the particular educational needs of special populations. Indicators appearing on the Web examine the characteristics of public alternative schools for at-risk students and the extent to which students with disabilities are included in regular classrooms for instructional purposes.

School choice provides parents with the opportunity to choose a school for their children other than the assigned public school; indicators on this topic are found in the fifth subsection. Parents may choose a private school, they may live in a district that offers choice among public schools, or they may move into a particular community in order to enroll their child in their school of choice. Indicators in the school choice subsection on the Web examine parental choice of charter schools and outline characteristics of public charter schools. One indicator in this volume examines parental choice of school as an alternative to their child's assigned public school.

The final subsection details financial support for education. Fundamentally, these financial sources of support are either private, in which individuals decide how much they are willing to pay for education, or public, in which case funding decisions are made by citizens through their governments. In this subsection of The Condition of Education, the primary focus is on describing the forms and amounts of financial support to education from public and private sources, how those funds are distributed among different types of schools, and the items on which they are spent. Among the indicators in this volume of The Condition of Education are indicators on variations in expenditures per student, trends in expenditures per student in elementary and secondary education, and international comparisons of education expenditures.

The indicators on contexts of elementary and secondary schooling from previous editions of The Condition of Education, which are not included in this volume, are available at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe.