Selected Statistics From the Public Elementary and Secondary Education Universe: School Year 2014-15

Full report

Selected Findings: School Year 2014–15

•  There were 98,373 operating public elementary/secondary schools in SY 2014–15; this number includes 1,457 new schools that opened for the first time. States reported that 1,573 schools closed since SY 2013–14. Most operating schools were regular schools (89,528) that were primarily responsible for instruction in the standard curriculum and other areas. An additional 1,960 schools focused primarily on special education services; 1,408 schools were identified as vocational schools; and 5,477 were identified as alternative education schools. 

• In SY 2014–15 there were 50.3 million public elementary and secondary school students in membership (table 2), an increase of 0.5 percent from the 50.0 million students reported in SY 2013–14
  

• In SY 2014–15, the pupil/teacher ratio (i.e., the number of students for every FTE teacher) in public schools was 16.1, unchanged from SY 2013–14 (Glander 2015). Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the pupil/teacher ratio in SY 2014–15 ranged from a high of 23.6 in California to a low of 10.6 in Vermont. 

   

  • In SY 2014–15, some 42 states including the District of Columbia reported having a total of 6,752 charter schools (table 3). This is an increase of 4.4 percent from the 6,465 reported in SY 2013–14 (Glander 2015). 
    
    
  • More schools (28,292) were in suburban locations than in any other locale in SY 2014–15. An additional 23,632 were in cities; 25,152 schools were in rural areas; and 11,666 were in towns. The largest percentage of students attended suburban schools (40 percent); schools in cities had the next largest percentage of students (30 percent), followed by schools in rural areas (19 percent) and towns (11 percent). 
    
    

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