Education Data

What Education Data does

Education Data provides agent-accessible information about US public K-12 schools and school districts. The dataset covers school and district directories, enrollment, staffing, charter and magnet status, grade ranges, free or reduced-price lunch counts, district finance, and child poverty among school-age children.

The service is intended for questions such as finding public schools in a state or city, identifying districts by name, comparing district enrollment, calculating per-pupil spending, and ranking districts by child-poverty rate. It covers K-12 public education rather than colleges.

How it works

The hosted MCP endpoint is served through the Pipeworx gateway at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/education-data/mcp. A client can connect to that URL directly, or use the full gateway endpoint at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp. The pack endpoint exposes the Education Data tools along with shared Pipeworx meta-tools, including routing and discovery capabilities.

The tools use keyless federal and Census-derived data. School and district directory information comes from the NCES Common Core of Data through the Urban Institute. District finance uses the NCES CCD F-33 finance survey, while child-poverty figures use Census SAIPE estimates for children ages 5–17.

District lookup results include an LEA identifier. Pass that identifier to the finance or child-poverty tool when retrieving data for a specific district. Alternatively, those tools can accept a state and rank or return districts across that state.

Setup and configuration

For a hosted connection, add the MCP URL to a compatible client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "education-data": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/education-data/mcp"
    }
  }
}

The local npm bridge uses stdio and forwards requests to the same hosted service:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "education-data": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-education-data"]
    }
  }
}

The bridge requires network access. Anonymous use is available with a daily call limit; adding PIPEWORX_API_KEY raises the limit for a free account. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 if the local bridge should also list the shared Pipeworx tools. Direct HTTP callers can invoke tools under https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/.

Tools and capabilities

• education_find_schools filters public schools by state, with optional city or school-name criteria. Results include NCES ID, district, enrollment, grade range, charter or magnet status, and lunch counts.
• education_find_districts searches public local education agencies by state and optional name. Results include LEA ID, location, school count, enrollment, and teacher counts.
• education_district_finance returns federal, state, and local revenue; spending by function; and computed per-pupil spending. Supply a state for comparisons or an LEA ID for one district.
• education_child_poverty returns Census estimates of the number and percentage of children ages 5–17 in poverty by district. Supply a state or LEA ID.

Limitations and notes

The tools focus on US public K-12 education. Finance data can trail directory data by one to two years because it comes from a separate survey. Anonymous local-bridge usage is capped at 50 calls per day, while an account raises that limit to 200 calls per day. The package is licensed under MIT.