Only 52 public schools in the country show a 0% proficiency rate in our data, and almost none of them are what the number implies. Most are very small, several teach newly arrived immigrants still learning English, and the figure often says more about testing rules than teaching.
Arthur Chen
The average public high school enrolls about 700 students, but the typical one enrolls 420, because a few thousands-strong giants pull the average up. Elementary schools average about 424. And the state you live in changes the answer by a factor of five.
Mary Johnson
Nearly a third of America's public schools are rural, but they enroll a fifth of its students. Suburbs run the biggest schools and the most of them. Here is how the four kinds of communities compare on size, staffing, and what that means for a child in each one.
Arthur Chen
We compared 2025 and 2026 STAAR results for more than 8,000 Texas schools. Reading, math, and social studies each moved one to two points. Science moved seven, in both tested grades, and at a majority of schools. Here is where the gains landed, which districts moved most, and the caveat on science.
Arthur Chen
Chronic absenteeism does not mean skipping school. It means missing 10 percent of the year, about 18 days, and it counts the sick days and the family trip too. Here is what the label means and what to actually do about it.
Mary Johnson
Birmingham City is the most predominantly Black large school district in the country at 83.2%. allk12 ranked every district with 20,000-plus students by Black enrollment share using NCES 2024-25 data, and the list splits into two clear groups.
Kate Carter
Several large Texas border districts now enroll a student body that is more than 99 percent Hispanic. allk12's read of NCES enrollment data shows the top of the list is not spread across the country. It sits in two places: the Texas-Mexico border and inland Southern California.
Kate Carter
An allk12 analysis of federal school data for 2024-25 counts 1,583 public schools flagged as virtual or online, enrolling 811,411 students between them. The 15 biggest hold about a fifth of that total. Not one of the 1,583 has a test proficiency score in the same data.
Arthur Chen
An allk12 analysis of federal enrollment data finds the 14 largest US school districts that shrank most from 2017-18 to 2024-25. Baldwin Park Unified led at -44.2%, and 13 of the 14 sit in coastal California.
Arthur Chen
In a set of large districts where most families live near the poverty line, students score far above what their demographics would predict. allk12's BeatsExpectations metric ranks the biggest overperformers, and the list is dominated by Texas border districts, Southern California, and immigrant-heavy corners of New York City.
Arthur Chen
Millburn High School posted a 1,391 SAT average, the best of any New Jersey high school that takes all comers. The six schools ahead of it all choose their students. And the top regular-admission schools share a demographic pattern the state data doesn't mention.
Kate Carter
Los Angeles Unified is the biggest single school district in the country at 402,549 students, but the picture shifts fast from there. Here is the largest district in all 50 states from NCES SY 2024-25 data, plus why New York's number needs a caveat.
Kate Carter
The Puerto Rico Department of Education runs 856 schools, more than any other public system in the country, and it enrolls fewer students than Los Angeles Unified while doing it. Counting buildings gives you a different top 20 than counting students, and here's what the gap between the two tells you about how a district is put together.
Kate Carter
Cypress Bay High School in Weston enrolls 4,579 students, more than any other public high school in Florida. An allk12 analysis of federal enrollment data for 2024-25 ranks the 20 largest, and eight of the state's 67 county districts account for all of them. Orange County alone has six in the top 15.
Kate Carter
In Fremont Unified, more than two-thirds of the 33,073 students are Asian American. It leads a list of large districts concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Seattle eastside, a handful of booming immigrant suburbs, and Queens.
Kate Carter
While national public school enrollment is falling, a short list of districts is doing the opposite. Prosper ISD north of Dallas grew from 12,133 students to 31,651 in seven years. Almost every district on the list is either a Texas exurb or a statewide charter network.
Kate Carter
Charter schools cluster where state law invites them and vanish where it doesn't. Our count of every active public school in the NCES data shows California with the most charters, Washington, D.C. running more than half its schools as charters, and six states with none at all.
Mary Johnson
California and Texas each enroll about 5.5 million public school students, and together they account for roughly a fifth of the national total. Here is the full brick-and-mortar count for all 50 states plus DC, ranked.
Kate Carter
The smallest genuine public schools in the country serve two or three children, taught in a single room, often a long drive or a boat ride from anywhere else. Montana's remote schoolhouses and Maine's island schools lead the list.
Mary Johnson
We ranked every public high school in Georgia by its state-test proficiency. A Gwinnett magnet tops the list at 99.6%, but the more interesting story is what sits behind it: a wall of North Atlanta suburbs, and a handful of standouts far outside the metro.
Kate Carter
