• How Many Students Were Enrolled in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools?
• How Many Teachers Were There?
• How Many Staff Supervised or Provided Support Services for Public Education?
• How Many Students Graduated From High School During the 1997-98 School Year?
• What Is the Racial/Ethnic Background of Students Enrolled in Public Schools?

In school year 1998-99, there were 46.5 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia (table 1). Of these students, 25.9 million were in prekindergarten through grade 6, an additional 20 million were in grades 7 through 12, and the remaining 0.7 million were ungraded students.*

California had the most public elementary and secondary school students (5,926,000), followed by Texas (3,945,000) and New York (2,877,000). The three lowest student counts were in the District of Columbia (72,000), Wyoming (95,000), and Vermont (105,000).

About 2.8 million full-time-equivalent teachers provided instruction in public elementary and secondary schools in the 1998-99 school year (table 2). Among this group, 1,568,000 were elementary school teachers (including prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers) and 1,013,000 were secondary school teachers. The remaining 245,000 teachers taught ungraded classes or were not assigned a specific grade.

The ratio of total students to total teachers for the nation was 16.5 students per teacher. These ratios ranged from lows of 12.8 students per teacher in Vermont and 13.2 in Maine to highs of 22.4 in Utah and 21.0 in California. The median student/teacher ratio was 15.7:1; that is, about half of the states had a student/teacher ratio equal to or greater than 15.7:1, and half had a lower ratio. Student/teacher ratio should not be interpreted as average class size since not all teachers are assigned to a class (for example, music and reading teachers in elementary schools).

In addition to the teachers enumerated previously, about 587,000 instructional aides directly assisted teachers in providing instruction (table 3). An additional 37,000 instructional coordinators and supervisors helped teachers through curriculum development and inservice training. Support staff for students included 93,000 guidance counselors and 52,000 librarians. This translates to about 500 students for every guidance counselor reported, and 891 students for each librarian. An additional 1,281,000 staff members provided support services for students. These services included food, health, library assistance, maintenance, transportation, security, and other services in the nation's public schools. There were 129,000 school administrators (mostly principals and assistant principals), 51,000 school district administrators, and about 360,000 administrative support staff.

The relative distribution of all staff is illustrated in figure 1. Instructional staff (teachers, instructional aides, and coordinators) made up 63.7 percent of all staff. Another 26.3 percent of all staff (librarians, counselors, psychologists, and other support staff) provided support services to schools and students. Administrators and administrative support staff made up 10 percent of all education staff. On the average, there were 16 teachers and 13 other staff for each administrator. All of these distributions and ratios vary greatly from state to state.

Some 2,458,000 students received regular high school diplomas in the 50 states and the District of Columbia during the 1997-98 school year and subsequent summer (table 4). An additional 141,000 students received high school equivalency certificates (this group includes only those who were 19 or younger). Finally, some 38,000 "other high school completers" received a certificate of attendance or some other high school completion certificate instead of a regular diploma. (Note that some states grant only regular diplomas and the high school equivalency certificates.) National totals for both high school equivalency certificate recipients and "other high school completers" represent an undercount due to missing data in some states.

In school year 1998-99, there were 46.5 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of these students, 533,000 were American Indian/Alaska Natives; 1,828,000 were Asian/Pacific Islanders; 6,939,000 were Hispanics; 7,923,000 were black, non-Hispanics; and 29,142,000 were white, non-Hispanics (table 5).

Table 6 presents the numbers of students receiving a regular high school diploma by racial/ethnic category for 1997-98. The U.S. totals could not be computed by race/ethnicity because data were missing for nine states.*Throughout this report, the five outlying areas, the Department of Defense Dependents Schools (overseas), and the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools are not included in national totals.

Figure 1.—Distribution of elementary and secondary education staff by category: School year 1998-99

Table 1.—Public school student membership, by grade and state: Fall 1998

Table 2.—Public school student/teacher ratio, student membership, and teachers, by level of instruction and state: Fall 1998

Table 3.—Number of staff employed by public elementary and secondary school systems and percentage of total staff, by category and state: Fall 1998

Table 4.—Number of public school graduates, 12th-grade student membership, and 9th-grade student membership 3 years earlier, by state: School year 1997-98

Table 5.—Public school membership by race/ethnicity and state: School year 1998-99

Table 6.—Public regular high school graduates by race/ethnicity and state: School year 1997-98