A few weeks back, children as young as kindergartners celebrated a special day in dozens of schools throughout the region: the 100th Day. It was a day like any other, warmer than one might expect in midwinter, but it was the 100th day.

Numbers matter.

The Inquirer's 2002 Report Card on the Schools - the fifth such report since 1997 - takes the measure of the region's public school systems, technical schools, charter schools and nonpublic high schools.

The report aims to open a door for readers, to serve as a means of beginning an inquiry into the quality and effectiveness of schools in five Pennsylvania and three South Jersey counties, including Philadelphia.

The task is both daunting and essential: The region's public schools this year enroll nearly 750,000 students at a cost of more than $6.7 billion.

By virtue of its scope, the report offers an overview of trends in education, both in the classroom and in the management of these complex and costly school systems.

Some key findings, based on information for the 2001-02 year, as reported by school officials to The Inquirer in response to surveys distributed in the fall:

Spending in suburban districts in Pennsylvania has climbed to more than $10,000 per student.

Spending in South Jersey is about $8,000 per student.

Top teacher pay (not including pay for teachers with doctorates) exceeds $80,000 in 17 suburban districts in Pennsylvania and three South Jersey districts.

Among nonpublic high schools, median tuition is $6,475 this year.

In addition, the data show that local districts are beginning to expand early-childhood-education programs, especially in New Jersey, where nearly one in three districts has programming for 3-year-olds and half offer 4-year-old pre-K classes. (There are 103 districts in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties, though several run secondary schools only.)

The numbers are slimmer in Pennsylvania, where just three of 64 districts offer pre-K classes for 3-year-olds and nine have pre-K for 4-year-olds.

As any parent knows, learning begins long before the first day of kindergarten. This report explores some of the issues related to early-childhood learning and education.

The impact of technology also can be gauged by district responses:

In South Jersey, 17 districts let parents check homework online; 16 districts in Pennsylvania do that.

In 73 South Jersey districts, teachers have e-mail; in Pennsylvania, 55 districts offer it.

This report also looks at the impact of the standards movement on classroom instruction. Teachers pin examples of standards-quality work on the wall - work that meets state expectations about what students should know and be able to do at their grade level.

"The standards movement is now 10 years old and only in the last couple of years have you begun to see the impact of the reforms begun back then," said Stinson Stroup, with the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.

"It takes time to align curriculum; it takes time to provide the necessary support for your staff; and it takes time to see a pattern of improved instruction," Stroup said.

A cautionary note is necessary about this report: Numbers cannot fully describe a single school or a school district. This is a starting point, not a final evaluation.

There are other means of learning about local schools.

School principals and district superintendents say that a visit or two to local schools will be far more instructive than a set of numbers.

One way to discern how well a local district is governed is to attend school board meetings and to ask informed questions.

School Web sites can be useful, although few districts have yet taken full advantage of the Web as an information clearinghouse.

Pennsylvania last year released an analysis of the performance of all public schools in the state conducted by Standard & Poor's. The data, however, were several years old.

In addition, the Departments of Education in Pennsylvania and New Jersey now routinely post voluminous reports and statistics about local districts to their Web sites.

The region's independent and parochial schools as well as the up-and-coming charter schools, which are independently run but publicly financed, also are eager to share information about their programs. Parents curious about those schools can drop by main offices or check out the Web.

The wealth of information in the 2002 Report Card on the Schools counts as an effort to help readers begin to understand the state of education in the Philadelphia region.