Washington  The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today released the 2015-16 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). This data, which is self-reported by 17,300 public school districts and 96,400 public schools and educational programs, is collected and published biennially by OCR.

Since 1968, the federal government has collected civil rights data about schools. For the first time, the 2015-16 CRDC report includes comprehensive data regarding incidents of criminal offenses in our nation's public schools. It also includes several new categories of data on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) course taking.

"Protecting all students' civil rights is at the core of the Department's mission," said U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. "We are pleased to produce the CRDC in a way that it can be reviewed, analyzed and utilized by local, state and federal education leaders. I want to commend the many educators, school leaders and OCR staff who put in countless hours to produce this data and who work tirelessly to ensure all students are able to learn in a safe and nurturing environment free from discrimination."

The Department used CRDC data to produce topic-specific data briefs on two major topics: STEM Course Taking and School Climate and Safety.

The full CRDC data set is available at: https://www2.ed.gov/ocr/docs/crdc-2015-16.html