Overview of the 100 Largest School Districts

In the 2006–07 school year, there were 17,533 operational public school districts, 100,833 operational public schools, and almost 50 million students in public schools in the United States and jurisdictions (table 1). Additionally, there were 3.2 million full-time equivalent (FTE)² teachers in the 2006–07 school year and 2.7 million high school completers in the 2005–06 school year.³ The 100 largest school districts comprised less than 1 percent of all public school districts but served 22 percent of all public elementary and secondary students. These school districts contained 17 percent of all public schools and employed 22 percent of all FTE teachers. In comparison, the 500 largest school districts comprised 3 percent of all public school districts, 32 percent of public schools, and served 43 percent (21.5 million) of all public elementary and secondary students in the United States and jurisdictions.

The 100 largest school districts ranged in size from 47,680 to 999,150 students in 2006–07 (table A-1). Twenty-eight of these districts served more than 100,000 students. The largest public school district was New York City Public Schools, New York, with 999,150 students enrolled in 1,429 schools. The next largest was Los Angeles Unified, California, with 707,627 students in 815 schools. The enrollment of each of these two largest districts was greater than the enrollment of each of the 27 smallest states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Department of Defense dependents schools (overseas and domestic).⁴