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

From the National Center for Education Statistics, released today.
Direct to Full Text: Selected Statistics From the Public Elementary and Secondary Education Universe: School Year 2014–15
38 pages; PDF.
Selected Findings

• Table 1 provides counts of schools by their operating status and type. 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.

• Table 1 also provides counts of LEAs by their operating status and type. There were 18,260 operating LEAs in SY 2014–15, including 487 new agencies that opened for the first time. States reported that 194 LEAs closed since SY 2013–14. Most operating agencies were regular ones (13,601) that were responsible for educating students residing within their jurisdiction. A total of 1,383 operating agencies were supervisory unions or regional education service agencies that typically provided services to other LEAs. A total of 2,868 were independent charter agencies in which all the associated schools were charter schools. An additional 408 agencies were operated by a state, federal, or other agency (derived from table 1).

• 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 (Glander 2015).
• In SY 2014–15, public elementary and secondary schools and local education agencies employed a total of 3.1 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) teachers (table 2).

• Table 2 also provides pupil/teacher ratios. 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).

• Table 4 provides state-level counts of schools and the percentage distribution of students by schools’ locales. 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).

Direct to Full Text: Selected Statistics From the Public Elementary and Secondary Education Universe: School Year 2014–15
38 pages; PDF.

  Selected Statistics From the Public Elementary and Secondary Education Universe: School Year 2014–15 by LJ’s infoDOCKET on Scribd

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