Chart assignment

Charts to read and discuss

Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.

  1. What are the largest school districts in the U.S.?

Chart 1 of 1 · Schools

What are the largest school districts in the U.S.?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

New York City, New York is the largest public school district, with 845,509 students, 2 times as many as Los Angeles Unified, California (419,929). Miami-Dade County, Florida is third with 335,500. Together the 100 largest districts teach 10.2 million students, and even the 100th, Frederick County, Maryland, has 47,681. These are the enrollments the Census Bureau used for its school finance survey of the school year that ended in 2024, from the Department of Education's count, which can be a year or so older.

Questions to discuss

  1. In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
  2. Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
  3. Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of School System Finances (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Jun 30, 2024

Open the chart and its numbers

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