Abstract: This
publication provides basic descriptive information about the 100 largest school
districts (ranked by student membership) in the United States, Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Department of Defense (overseas) schools and outlying areas (American Samoa,
Guam, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands). For the sake of
simplicity, when discussing characteristics, the
term ¡°nation (or United States)¡± is used to refer to all 50 states, the
District of Columbia, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Defense
(overseas) schools and outlying areas. This is different from most NCES
reports, which only include the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the
United States totals. 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. Information about the characteristics cited
above is found in the fourteen basic tables. Four text tables provide national
and 100 largest school district data and precede the basic tables for the purpose
of establishing a meaningful context for the information on the 100 largest
districts. Following the basic tables, appendix A lists the 500 largest school districts
with some identifying information and basic statistical data. Appendix B is an
alphabetical list of the 500 districts and their rank by size. Appendix C
provides the same data as table 1 but for the 1988¨C1989 school year. Appendix D
provides the number of the 100 largest districts by state. On all basic tables
and appendices, with the exception of appendix B and D, districts are presented
by decreasing order of size.