Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Interesting Factoids Regarding U.S. School Enrollment

NCES today released a report on the number of public elementary and secondary schools that fit into all sorts of categories.  Here are the numbers I found most interesting:

-4.4% of our public schools are charter schools.  They enroll 2.6% of the public school population.

-40.2% of our public schools are Title I schools (which generally means that 75+% of students are eligible for free/reduced price lunch).  40.1% of our public school students attend such a school.

-The average student/teacher ratio is 15.8.  Maine has the lowest (9.0) and Utah (23.5) the highest.

-Average school size by type of school:
Elementary: 445
Middle: 581.8
High: 881.2

-11 states have at least one school with only one student in it

-enrollment by location of school:

type
% of schools
% of stus
city
25.4%
29.0%
suburban
28.1%
35.1%
town
13.8%
12.7%
rural
32.1%
23.2%

-Overall, 43.2% of students are eligible for free/reduced price lunch.  Mississippi has the highest (66.9%) and New Hampshire has the lowest (18.1%).  Here's the breakdown by school location:

city: 55.7%
suburban: 34.3%
town: 46.5%
rural: 39.1%

Out of all students who are eligible for free/reduced price lunch, the percent who attend schools in each type of location is:

city: 37.8%
suburban: 27.8%
town: 13.6%
rural: 20.9%

-I often speak about "high poverty, urban schools."  There's no chart that would tell us what percentage of schools fit into that category, but we can calculate that 15% of the nation's public schools students attend a city school and are eligible for free/reduced price lunch.  If we include suburban areas (oftentimes, some of the immediate suburbs are poorer and more "urban" than parts of the city), that number rises to 26.1%.  Given that about 40% of students attend a Title I school, and that 40% of free/reduced price eligible students attend a school in a city, I'd estimate that possibly 10-15% of students attend a Title I school in a city.  If we extend the definition of "urban" out to some immediate suburbs, the number who attend a high poverty, urban school is likely in the neighborhood of 20%.  I'll see if I can get a more precise tabulation.

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