State Education Department (SED) Primary and Secondary Education Data
Visit the Guides to Historical Records section of the Publications area to obtain copies of the Users' Guides to the IMF and PMF. Additionally, selections of the Users' Guide to the IMF are available in html.
The Basic Educational Data System (BEDS), created by the New York State Education Department (SED) Information Center on Education, contains statistical data on the pupils, staff, and facilities of every local school district, school building, and intermediate district (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services--BOCES) in New York.
BEDS consists of two files
- Institutional Master File (IMF) contains data on each school district, public and private school building, and BOCES. Individual records provide institution identifiers and statistics on enrollment, staffing, and special educational programs. Files are available for each year, 1967-1981, and contain four record types: public school, private school, school district, and BOCES. Annual files contain an average of 7200 records; the size of the records varies.
- The PMF file contains statistical data on the demographic and professional characteristics of public school professional staff and their job assignments. There are individual records for up to eight teaching and four nonteaching assignments each year. Files are available for each year, 1968-1981. Annual files contain roughly 600,000 records; the record size is 170 characters.
The State Archives also holds paper statistical reports of school enrollment and finances for the period 1904-75. [Series 18355 (IMF), 18356 (PMF)]
The IMF and PMF each contain fourteen rectangular flat files stored in standard label EBCDIC, and are available on magnetic tape (IMF, 2 reels; PMF, 14 reels). In addition, the IMF files can be directly downloaded from State Archives' ftp site.