Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 2003–04
NCES 2006-329
September 2006

Overview of the 100 Largest School Districts

In the 2003–04 school year, there were 17,512 public school districts, 98,213 public schools, and over 49.3 million students in public schools in the United States and jurisdictions (table 1). Additionally, there were over 3.1 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) teachers in the 2003–04 school year and over 2.8 million high school completers in the 2002–03 school year.2 The 100 largest school districts comprised less than 1 percent of all public school districts but served 23 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, comprised 32 percent of public schools, and served 43 percent (21.3 million) of all public elementary and secondary students in the United States and jurisdictions.

The 100 largest school districts ranged in size from 46,594 to 1,023,674 students in 2003–04 (table A-1). Twenty-seven of these districts served over 100,000 students. The largest public school district was New York City Public Schools, New York, with 1,023,674 students enrolled in 1,225 schools.  The next largest was the Los Angeles Unified district, California, with 747,009 students in 693 schools. The enrollment of each of these two largest districts was greater than the enrollment of each of 28 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, each of the four outlying areas, the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, and the Department of Defense schools.3


2 In the CCD, data on high school completers are collected 1 year after the completions occur.  For example, data on 2002–03 high school completers are collected in the 2003–04 data collection. 
3 State enrollment data can be found in the following CCD data file: “State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary/Secondary Education,” 2003–04, Version 1a.