Sources & Updates
Every number on this site traces back to a public agency dataset. This page lists where each dashboard section gets its data, how often it refreshes, and when it last changed — including a per-state view for the 50-state comparison.
Last refresh by section
Dates reflect the newest record timestamp in each dataset, not when the source agency published it.
Loading...
Last refresh by state
Headline metrics for all 50 states plus D.C. come from NCES and Census and refresh together on a weekly pull. Illinois additionally carries district, county, provider, and program-level detail.
Loading...
Methodology & data quality
How each dataset is cleaned, matched to counties and districts, and validated before it appears on a dashboard — plus the limits you should keep in mind when citing it.
Shared rules applied to every dataset
These conventions hold across all sections unless a dataset below says otherwise.
Cleaning
Missing values stay blank and are never coerced to zero. Names are trimmed and case-normalized; counties use the 102 official Illinois spellings in title case.
Matching
Stable agency identifiers (RCDT, FIPS, license number) are the join key wherever they exist; name-based matching is a fallback and is logged when used.
Validation
Every load is range-checked, reconciled against a published statewide total where one exists, and upserted on a natural key so re-runs update instead of duplicating.
How to read these dates
Last refresh is when we last wrote to our copy of the dataset. It can be newer than the agency's publication date if we re-validated existing records.
Data year is the school or fiscal year the numbers describe. Federal finance data typically runs two years behind the current year.
Admins can trigger a manual pull at any time from the admin dashboard; results appear in the changelog.