Maryland runs 1,383 public schools across 25 districts, with a 14.4:1 average classroom and 49.0% of students on subsidized lunch.
1,383
public schools
25
school districts
14.4:1
avg student–teacher
49.0%
free/reduced lunch
What the NCES Data Says About Maryland Schools
Maryland operates 1,383 public K-12 schools organised into 25 independent school districts serving 885,796 students, per the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data 2024-25. The largest district, Montgomery County Public Schools, enrolls 160,554 pupils across 210 schools at $18,101 per student, while smaller rural districts can run fewer than a dozen campuses. This fragmentation — inherited from century-old township governance patterns in many states — is why per-pupil spending, class sizes, and programme availability vary dramatically inside a single state boundary.
Statewide, the average student-teacher ratio is 14.4:1, a useful benchmark for comparing any individual district or school on PlainSchools. Free-lunch eligibility averages 49.0% across Maryland public schools, a federal indicator of economic need that drives Title I funding allocations. The district table below is sortable by enrollment, school count, and per-pupil expenditure — the three fields that best predict a district's financial and demographic profile. For schools specifically, use the rankings links above to view per-category leaderboards covering spending, class size, best schools by composite quality score, chronic absenteeism, and funding-equity distribution within the state.
Every district figure here pulls from two distinct federal surveys: enrollment and demographic data come from the NCES Common Core of Data 2024-25 (school membership and directory), while per-pupil spending, teacher salaries, and federal/state/local revenue shares originate in the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey (typically FY 2021-22). Civil-rights indicators — gifted enrollment, AP course counts, counselor staffing, chronic absenteeism, in- and out-of-school suspensions — come from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Cross-referencing these three sources is what lets PlainSchools produce composite scores and equity rankings that single-source tools cannot.
Maryland's average class size vs. every US state
Average students per teacher, state by state (lower means smaller classes)
14smaller classes than 49% of 51 US states
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more US states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Department of Education — NCES Common Core of Data · 2024-25
Federal data — no proprietary formula.
PlainSchools publishes the actual federal survey data — enrollment, staffing, finance, and demographics from NCES — without a composite rating on top. The insights below are computed directly from those datasets; every number traces to a cited source.
Montgomery County Public Schools accounts for 18.1% of all Maryland K-12 enrollment
That concentration — well above the 8.4% national median for largest-district share — means state-level averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant district. Montgomery County Public Schools operates 210 schools serving 160,554 students, spending $18,101 per pupil. When one district dominates a state's K-12 footprint, its programmatic and budget decisions effectively set policy for a majority of the state's students.
Maryland per-pupil spending varies 3.5× across districts
Per-pupil spending in Maryland ranges from $14,943 (lowest district) to $52,174 (highest), a spread of $37,231. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually equalised funding system — most states have wider gaps. High-spending districts typically draw on higher property tax bases, a structural feature of state education finance under the federal Title I framework that sets the floor but not the ceiling.
Maryland operates only 25 school districts — among the most consolidated K-12 governance structures in the country
Most Maryland districts are countywide or multi-county systems. Consolidation produces narrower per-pupil spending variance because resources pool across larger student populations, but it can also mask intra-district inequities — school-by-school differences within a single district are not visible at the state-aggregation level. Consolidated states typically rely more heavily on state-level funding formulas than on local property tax variability.
Average Maryland student-teacher ratio is 14.4:1 — near the U.S. average of approximately 16:1
Student-teacher ratio is the simplest staffing metric reported on NCES Common Core of Data, but it does not capture push-in specialists, intervention staff, English Language Learner aides, special education co-teachers, or counseling and support staff. Variation between districts within the state is wider than the state-average figure suggests — large urban districts may run 20:1 while small rural districts run 10:1, both inside the same average. Class-load comparisons are most meaningful at the district or school level, not the state aggregate.
Largest K-12 public schools by total students enrolled
students
Montgomery Blair High
3,266
Montgomery Blair High
3,266 students
100.0% of the leader · rank #1 · Silver Spring, MD
Walter Johnson High
3,016
Walter Johnson High
3,016 students
92.3% of the leader · rank #2 · Bethesda, MD
High Point High
3,012
High Point High
3,012 students
92.2% of the leader · rank #3 · Beltsville, MD
Wheaton High
2,794
Wheaton High
2,794 students
85.5% of the leader · rank #4 · Silver Spring, MD
Charles Herbert Flower…
2,712
Charles Herbert Flowers High
2,712 students
83.0% of the leader · rank #5 · Springdale, MD
Parkdale High
2,588
Parkdale High
2,588 students
79.2% of the leader · rank #6 · Riverdale, MD
Bowie High
2,580
Bowie High
2,580 students
79.0% of the leader · rank #7 · Bowie, MD
Eleanor Roosevelt High
2,544
Eleanor Roosevelt High
2,544 students
77.9% of the leader · rank #8 · Greenbelt, MD
What this shows The largest public schools in Maryland by enrollment — often statewide virtual academies or large consolidated campuses, so size here reflects reach, not quality.
Source: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD) — Public school universe · 2023-2024 Public K-12 school enrollment, demographics, and operational data; collected annually by NCES from state education agencies.