Table 1 presents basic data on the number of students receiving educational services; full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers; 2000-01 completers; and number of schools for each of the 100 largest school districts. Also shown is information to fully identify each school district by its city, state, and county, since the name of the district is not always sufficient for this purpose. On this and all of the other tables, the districts are shown in descending order of size (students in membership as of October 2001). Since the districts are displayed by the number of students, it is easy to note differences in the numbers of teachers, high school completers, and schools as they related to districts of similar size. For example, the Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia, have more high school completers than all seven of the districts immediately larger than it is.
For all school districts other than Massachusetts and Tennessee school districts, the teacher count was derived from the school universe survey. Teacher counts were taken from the local education agency survey for Massachusetts and Tennessee because teacher data were not reported at the school level. (For a more detailed description of the surveys see the methodology section.)
NOTE: In tables 2, 3, 7, 8, 19, and 21, only schools with student membership (or regular schools with students, as specified in Table 4) are used.
Table 2 provides information on school characteristics in the 100 largest school districts by displaying students (students in membership) at different percentile levels, as well as mean school size for each district (computed using regular schools having membership). For example, in New York City Public Schools, New York, the table shows that the smallest 25 percent of schools have student memberships of 513 or fewer, while the largest 25 percent have student memberships of 1,098 or more. Dividing all the students in regular schools in the district by the number of such schools yields a mean, or average, size of 896.5 students. If all the regular schools in New York City Public Schools were listed by size, the school at the mid-point on the list (the median) would have 739 pupils in membership.
The average school size ranges from a low of 395.1 pupils (Puerto Rico Department of Education, Puerto Rico) to a high of 1,374.4 (Gwinnett County School District, Georgia) for these districts. The largest school in 100 largest districts, and also the largest regular school in the United States, is the 5,491-student Charles W. Flanagan High School, Broward County School District, Florida.1
Table 3 presents median pupil/teacher ratios for the schools found in the categories established in Table 5. Since teacher counts by school were not available for the states of Massachusetts and Tennessee, no pupil/teacher ratio could be calculated for the districts in these states. Among the districts for which data were available, the median pupil/teacher ratio for all schools in a district was 16.9. The pupil/teacher ratios varied from 12.7 in Forsyth County Schools, North Carolina, to 27.6 in Jefferson County, Kentucky.
Table 4 presents the different types of staff in each district. Teachers represented the largest proportion of staff. Sixty-two districts reported that 50 percent or more of their staff were teachers and 5 districts had over 60 percent teachers.
Table 5 reports the number and percentage of Title I eligible schools, the percentage of students in Title I eligible schools, and the percentage of students in Title I school-wide programs. The 2001-02 school year was the fourth year the CCD collected this information. Not all states were able to report this information. The percentage of Title I eligible schools in districts that provided the information varied widely, from 11 to 99 percent. Of the 95 districts that reported at least one Title I school, 29 reported that 100 percent of Title I schools were also Title I school-wide eligible.2
Table 6 also reports new data items beginning in the 1998-99 school year, magnet and charter schools. Only 62 of the largest 100 school districts either were able to report the number of magnet schools or reported that magnet schools did not exist in their states, while all districts in states that had charter schools reported the number of charter schools. Many charter schools function as their own school districts, which is why many of the districts in this report exist in states with charter school legislation but report no charter schools within their district.
Table 7 gives the number of schools in each district in five ranges of percent-non-white student membership, as well as the overall non-white student percentage for each district. In this reporting, non-white is defined as all race/ethnicities other than White, non-Hispanic. Eight out of the 10 largest school districts have more than 75 percent non-white student membership. The percentage of non-white students ranges from 100 percent in the Puerto Rico Department of Education, Puerto Rico, to 8.2 percent in the Jordan School District, Utah.
Whereas table 8 deals with the number of schools in each district that have at least one student whose race is other than White, non-Hispanic, Table 8 presents the percentage of students in each district by specific racial/ethnic categories. This table illustrates that some school districts are made up of many non-white groups while others have high concentrations of one non-white group. For example, the New York City Public Schools, New York has 38 percent Hispanic students and 34 percent Black, non-Hispanic students whereas the Philadelphia City School District, Pennsylvania, has a much higher percentage of Black, non-Hispanic students (65 percent) than any other non-white group.
Also shown in Table 8 is the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Responses in this data category were available for 95 out of the 100 largest districts. Among these districts, the percentages of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch under the National School Lunch Program varied greatly. Of the 95 districts that reported free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, 42 districts reported that over 50 percent of their students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.
Tables 9 and 10 present data from the 2000 Decennial Census. These data represent the race/ethnicity data collected on the Census "short form." Table 9 shows the numbers and Table 10 the percent of the population under the age of 18 by race and ethnicity. The way race/ethnicity was collected on the Decennial Census is not the same as it is collected on the 2001-02 CCD. The Decennial Census presented two racial/ethnic questions to respondents, separating the Hispanic identification from the races. Respondents answered a question on their Hispanic status first, then answered a question on their race (Hispanic not included). See the Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2000 (C2KBR/01-1) for more information from the Bureau of the Census' American Factfinder Website at: http://factfinder.census.gov. All NCES surveys, including the CCD, will be using these new racial and ethnic data items in the future.
Table 11 presents the numbers of students assigned to the schools in the 100 largest school districts. It should be noted that students attending a "non-regular" school (i.e., special education, vocational education, other or alternative school) are often counted at their regular home school rather than the school they attend. The number and percentage of students having Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) in accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act-Part B is also shown in Table 3. The student counts presented in this table are aggregated from the school level, and may differ from counts presented elsewhere in this report that are derived from the school district level.
Table 12 presents the number of schools in the 100 largest districts, by type of school. All but three of the districts have specialized schools devoted to special, vocational, or alternative education. It can be seen from this table that districts vary widely in their use of specialized versus general schools in educating students with special needs. This table also includes schools that do not have students. Schools may not have students for a variety of reasons, the most common being that the school serves a student population that is "counted" at another school. For example, students dually enrolled in a regular school and a vocational education school would be counted in only one of these schools.
Table 13 reports the percentage of 2000-01 school year dropouts for those districts in states that were able to report dropouts using the NCES dropout definition (see Glossary for definition). Sixty of the 100 districts have data on this table.
Table 14 deals with the school district revenues and expenditures and is based on fiscal year 2000 (which is school year 1999-2000) local government financial data collected by the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. It presents the amount of revenue received by source (local, state, and federal); current expenditures and those current expenditures for instruction; and current expenditures per pupil in membership for fiscal year 2000. Data for Puerto Rico were obtained from the National Public Education Financial Survey. Among the 100 largest school districts, Boston School District, Massachusetts, had the highest expenditure per pupil ($11,503) and Puerto Rico Department of Education, Puerto Rico the lowest ($3,404). Overall, there were 22 school districts with per pupil expenditures greater than $7,000 and 2 districts with per pupil expenditures less than $4,000.
Whereas Table 10 deals with the dollar amounts of revenues and expenditures, table 15 presents the percentages of revenues by sources as well as the percentage of current expenditures spent on instruction. The 100 largest school districts spent 63 percent of their current expenditures on instruction ranging from a high of 74 percent in the New York City Public Schools, New York to a low of 41 percent in the District of Columbia Public Schools, District of Columbia.
Tables 16, 17, and 18 present data from the 2000 School District Tabulations (STP2) from the Bureau of the Census. Table 16 presents data on the percentages of all households and family households with incomes below the poverty line in the 100 largest districts. Table 17 presents data on the educational attainment of adults ages 25 and older in the 100 largest districts, and Table 18 presents data on the English language proficiency of children ages 5 to 7 in the 100 largest school districts. Data from the 2000 School District Tabulations are sample data and are subject to sampling error.
In table 19, data are given on the number of students assigned to graded (three categories) and ungraded levels. In accounting for their students, 62 of the 100 largest districts assign all of their students to numbered grades and 38 use the "ungraded" status for some students in some settings, such as special education, vocational education, and other specialized and alternative programs. In this table, students assigned to all types of schools are counted in the grade for which they are reported. The student counts presented in this table are aggregated from the school level, and may differ from counts presented elsewhere in this report that are derived from the school district level.
A few of the new items starting in 1998-99 asked for the numbers of English Language Learners (ELL, formerly known as Limited English Proficient, LEP) and migrant students. table 20 reports these totals for those districts that provided this information. Ninety of the 100 largest school districts reported the number of migrant students enrolled in the previous year. Fresno Unified School District, California, reported the most migrant students served (9,076) and the highest percentage of migrant students (11.2 percent). Fresno also reported the most migrant students in summer programs, 2,304. Ninety-five of the 100 largest districts were able to report students served in ELL programs. Santa Ana Unified School District, California, reported the highest percentage of ELL students, 65 percent.
Table 21 answers the question of how many "primary," "middle," and "high" schools there are in the 100 largest school districts. Since nearly every conceivable grade span is found among the schools in the 100 largest school districts. Since nearly every conceivable grade span is found among the schools in the 100 largest districts, the following four categories are used: primary (low grade of prekindergarten to 3; high grade up to 8), middle (low grade 4 to 7; high grade 4 to 9), high (low grade 7 to 12; high grade 12), and other (all other configurations, including PK, K, or 1 to 12).
1 Data on school enrollment can be found in the following file: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, “Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey,” 2001–02, Version 1a.
2 Derived from table 5. The number of Title I eligible schools in a district were compared against the number of Title I school-wide programs within the district to determine whether all Title I eligible schools were also Title I school-wide eligible. If the number of Title I eligible schools in a district was equal to the number of Title I school-wide programs, then that district was counted as having all Title I schools as Title I school-wide eligible.
