• Introduction
• Overview of the 100 Largest Districts
• Where Are the 100 Largest School Districts?
• How Do These Districts Compare With the Average School District?
• References

This report provides basic descriptive information about the 100 largest school districts¹ in the United States, Department of Defense schools, and outlying areas (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands). Almost one in every four public school students in this nation is served by one of these 100 districts. They are distinguished from smaller districts by characteristics in addition to sheer size, such as average and median school size, pupil/teacher ratios, number of high school graduates, number of pupils receiving special education services, and minority enrollment as a proportion of total enrollment.

The tables in this report provide information about the characteristics cited above. To establish a context for the information on the 100 largest districts, national school district data are also included, as are basic data on the 500 largest school districts.

In the 1997-98 school year, there were 16,411 public school districts in the United States and its outlying areas, over 91,000 schools, and 46.9 million students in public education. There were 2.8 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) teachers in the 1997-98 school year and 2.6 million high school graduates in the 1996-97 school year. The 100 largest school districts made up less than 1 percent of all public school districts but served 23 percent of all public elementary and secondary school students (table A).

The 100 largest school districts represent more than 16 percent of schools and employ 20 percent of all teachers. The 500 largest districts make up 3 percent of all school districts and serve 20.1 million students, or 43 percent of the total public elementary and secondary school student population in the United States.

All of the 100 largest school districts have at least 40,000 students, and 26 of these school districts have over 100,000 students. The largest school district in the country is the New York City Public Schools, with 1,071,853 pupils enrolled in 1,153 schools. (The New York City Public Schools district is so large it has more students than the 6th through 10th largest school districts added together.) The second largest school district is the Los Angeles Unified, with 680,430 students in 645 schools.

Ninety-one of the 100 largest districts reported staff by type. In 87 of those districts, 45 percent or more of their staff were teachers, and in 10 of the districts over 60 percent were teachers. Only 14 of the districts had over 1 percent of their staff assigned to district administration.

Table A—Selected statistics for the nation, the 100 largest, and the 500 largest school districts: School year 1997-98

The District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico each have only one school district for the entire jurisdiction, and each is represented among the 100 largest school districts. There are 34 states that contain at least one of the 100 largest school districts. Two states, Florida and Texas, each have 14 districts among the 100 largest; California has 11. Only a few other states have more than one district represented in the 100 largest: Georgia and Maryland have 5; Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia have 4; Ohio has 3; and Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, and New York have 2. The following states each have one school district among the 100 largest: Alabama, Alaska, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin (table B).

As expected, these 100 largest districts tend to be in cities and counties having large populations, with administrative offices typically located in large cities and their environs. Many of the districts are in states where the school districts are coterminous with counties. Over 70 percent of these districts are located in coastal and gulf coast states.

By definition, the 100 largest school districts are large, and when compared to the membership distribution of all school districts, they are considerably larger than most. In the 1997-98 school year, 73 percent of all regular school districts² had memberships of fewer than 2,500 students. All of the 100 largest school districts had memberships of at least 40,000 students. Even though only 13 percent of regular school districts had 5,000 or more students, 66 percent (or 2 out of 3) students were served by these districts (table C).

The average school district in America has 5.6 schools compared to the 100 largest school districts, which average 151.5 schools per district (table A). Two of the largest school districts, New York City Public Schools and the Puerto Rico Department of Education, have over 1,000 schools in their districts. The 100 largest school districts, on average, serve considerably more students (108,186 compared to 2,858) and employ more teachers (5,685 compared to 170) per district than the average school district (table A).

The 100 largest school districts have more students per school than the average school district (714 compared to 514) (table A). In fact, 15 of the 100 largest school districts had an average regular school size of over 1,000 students. In addition to larger school sizes, the 100 largest school districts also have a high mean pupil/teacher ratio, 19.0 to 1 compared to 16.8 to 1 for the average school district. Among the 100 largest districts, the Garden Grove Unified School District, California, has the highest pupil/teacher ratio at 23.6 to 1, and the Northside Independent School District, Texas, has the lowest at 14.5 to 1.

The number of high school graduates as a percentage of all students in the 100 largest school districts was lower than that of the average school district: 4.5 percent of students were graduates in the 100 largest school districts compared to 5.6 percent for the average school district (table A).

The 100 largest school districts are not homogeneous, and certain student characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, poverty level, and disability status, vary across the districts.

A substantial number of the 100 largest school districts have a disproportionately high percentage of racial/ethnic minorities in their student population. The 100 largest districts, with 23 percent of the nation's public school students, served 38 percent of the 17.6 million minority public school students.³ The proportion of minority students in the 100 largest school districts is almost double the proportion of minority students in all public schools. In the 1997-98 school year, 66 percent of the students in the 100 largest school districts were minority students compared to 38 percent of students nationally (table D). In fact, 8 out of the 10 largest school districts had over 75 percent minority student membership.

Table B—Selected statistics for the 100 largest school districts in the United States: School year 1997-98

Table B—Selected statistics for the 100 largest school districts in the United States: School year 1997-98—Continued

Table C—Number and percentage of districts and students by district membership size for regular public elementary and secondary school districts in the nation:

Even with the relatively high minority membership in the 100 largest school districts, 46 of the 100 largest school districts report 50 percent or more of their students as white, non-Hispanic. Of these 46 districts, 14 report minority representation of less than 25 percent of their student body. In 19 of the 100 largest districts, half or more of the membership is black, non-Hispanic; 10 districts report that the majority of their students are Hispanic; and in 1 district, the majority of the students are Asian/Pacific Islander.

Students in the 100 largest school districts were also more likely to be eligible for the Free Lunch Program. Among schools that reported free lunch eligibility, 49 percent of students in the 100 largest school districts were eligible compared to 35 percent of all students (table D). Among the 88 of the 100 largest school districts that reported free lunch data, 38 districts reported over 50 percent of their students eligible for the Free Lunch Program.

Twelve percent of students in the 100 largest school districts had individualized education programs (IEPs) for students with disabilities. In the largest school district, New York City Public Schools, 13 percent, or 141,850 students, were reported to have IEPs. Most of these students were in regular schools, as only 3 percent of schools in the 100 largest school districts are special education schools.

Table D—Percentage of students eligible for free lunch and percentage of minority enrollment in the 100 and 500 largest school districts: School year 1997-98

In school year 1995-96, $290 billion were collected for public elementary and secondary education: 22 percent ($65 billion) of this amount of revenue went to the 100 largest school districts. Of the $65 billion revenue to the 100 largest school districts, a little less than one-third ($19 billion) was received by the 5 largest school districts (New York City Public Schools, Los Angeles Unified, Puerto Rico Department of Education, City of Chicago School District, and Dade County School District). The dollars from the federal government received by 99 of the 100 largest school districts constituted from 2 to 15 percent of all revenues to the district; the exception was Puerto Rico (29 percent).

The 100 largest school districts spent $58 billion (23 percent) of the $257 billion in current expenditures spent on the nation as a whole. The two largest school districts, New York City Public Schools and Los Angeles Unified, spent one out of five of the dollars expended by the 100 largest school districts. All of the 100 largest school districts devoted more than 50 percent of their current expenditures to instruction, with the exception of District of Columbia Public Schools (49 percent). New York City Public Schools spent the greatest proportion, 72 percent, on instruction among the 100 largest school districts.

The national average current expenditures per pupil were $5,646 for all districts, slightly higher than the $5,513 in the 100 largest school districts. Of the 100 largest school districts, 8 districts spent more than $7,000 per pupil (with Newark City spending the most, at $11,266 per pupil), and one school district, Puerto Rico Department of Education, spent less than $3,000 per pupil.

While there was a lot of movement within the 100 largest school districts over time, between the 1987-88 and 1997-98 school years, the 100 largest districts remained very similar. Only 12 of the 100 largest districts in the 1997-98 school year were not in the 100 largest in the 1987-88 school year. Clark County School District in Nevada was the only district to move into the largest 10 districts between these years (it moved from a rank of 19 in 1987-88 to 9 in 1997-98). Clark County includes the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country in the early nineties (Bureau of the Census 1997).

The number of students in the 100 largest school districts increased by 16 percent between 1987-88 and 1997-98, the number of teachers increased by 18 percent, and the number of schools by 7 percent. While the numbers of students, teachers, and schools have increased between these 2 years, the proportion of the national total that the 100 largest school districts made up did not change. For example, the number of students in the 100 largest school districts went from 23.3 percent of all districts in 1987-88 to 23.1 percent in 1997-98 (table E).

Table E—Number of students, teachers, and schools in the 100 largest school districts in the United States in school years 1987-88 and 1997-98