Top 10 Largest US Public Schools by Enrollment (NCES)
PlainSchools ranks individual US public schools by total student enrollment, drawn from the NCES Common Core of Data. Updated with each NCES data release; every figure links to the source school.
Research period:
Research question
Among the 95,891 US public schools in the NCES Common Core of Data, which individual schools carry the largest enrollment, and what do the top entries reveal about the prevalence of virtual and statewide charter schools at the top of the ranking?
Methodology
This ranking lists the total student enrollment reported by U.S. public schools in the NCES Common Core of Data, the federal census of public schools and districts. The figures are recomputed automatically each time NCES publishes a new release, so the page reflects the most recent data available, and nothing here is hand-entered.
Where NCES suppresses a value (for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality review), that record is left out of the ranking rather than shown as a zero, which would push low-information records ahead of others. Figures appear in the same units NCES publishes, and if NCES later revises a value the change appears here with the next release.
Every school in the table links to its full record, where you can check the underlying numbers against the official NCES source. We publish rankings straight from the data without editorial spin; if you believe a figure is wrong, the contact details in the footer reach us.
See the methodology page for source vintage and full details.
Top 10 Largest US Public Schools by Enrollment (NCES)
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, updated with each release
The ranked top 10
The full ranked top 10, with every figure linked to its source record. Figures update with each NCES data release.
| # | School | City | Enrollment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Commonwealth Charter Academy Cs | Harrisburg | 29,320 |
| 2 | Texas Virtual Academy at Hallsville | Hallsville | 19,731 |
| 3 | Ohio Virtual Academy | Maumee | 15,339 |
| 4 | Epic Charter School High School | Oklahoma City | 14,517 |
| 5 | Epic Charter School Elementary | Oklahoma City | 14,019 |
| 6 | Highlands Community Charter | Sacramento | 11,713 |
| 7 | Lone Star Online Academy | Roscoe | 11,686 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania Cyber Cs | Midland | 10,178 |
| 9 | Georgia Cyber Academy | Atlanta | 9,952 |
| 10 | Texas Connections Academy at Houston | Houston | 8,641 |
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), school-level enrollment files. Figures are updated with each NCES data release. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), school-level enrollment files. Figures are updated with each NCES data release.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Commonwealth Charter Academy Cs, with a value of 29,320 on the Enrollment column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes straight from the official NCES data; no number is hand-entered. When NCES publishes a revision, the ranking updates here with the next data release.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (29,320) and the 10th-ranked record (8,641) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated: a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Beyond the visible top-10, the linked entity profiles and the methodology page place this ranking in the context of the full population: how many records qualify in total and where the leaders sit relative to the typical value. Records with missing or zero values on the ranked measure are excluded so the comparison stays like-for-like.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking come from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, specifically the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), the federal census of US public schools and districts. We publish the figures as NCES reports them and refresh them with each new release, so the page does not carry stale numbers. The methodology page lists the source, the data vintage, and how each figure is derived.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
Top 10 Largest US Charter Schools by Enrollment (NCES)
Same enrollment scale, governance slice: top-10 schools operating under state-issued charters
What this analysis cannot tell us
Enrollment figures come from the NCES Common Core of Data and reflect the most recent submission cycle from each state education agency. Virtual schools and statewide charter schools, which serve students across an entire state through online or hybrid delivery, appear at the top of the enrollment ranking because their student bodies are not bounded by a physical campus. Comparing a virtual charter to a brick-and-mortar magnet school is not an apples-to-apples comparison of educational footprint. Charter status is indicated in the table but charter governance, funding, and authorization vary substantially by state. This ranking measures the size of the enrolled student body, not building capacity, instructional staff, or educational program offering.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD) - https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
Cite this analysis
PlainSchools. (2026). Top 10 Largest US Public Schools by Enrollment (NCES). https://plainschools.com/research/top-schools-by-enrollment/