Schools
School types and options
Number of school districts
Number of public schools
*2015–2016 Projection by the Tennessee Charter School Center
Public school enrollment
School demographics by type
Public school enrollment by race/ethnicity
Note: Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding.
Public school enrollment by other subgroups
*Low-income students are those eligible for the National School Lunch Program. Students with family incomes below 130 percent of the Federal Poverty Level are entitled to free school lunch, and students with family incomes below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Level are entitled to reduced-priced lunch. The 2015 Federal Poverty Level for a family of four was $24,250 in annual income.
- Tennessee Department of Education State Report Card. Last accessed June 21, 2016. https://www.tn.gov/education/topic/report-card
Public charter school geography
Public charter schools first began operating in Tennessee in 2003. Since then, the number of schools and the enrollment has increased dramatically, with public charter schools now fanning out to all 4 major cities in the state serving nearly 30,000 Tennessee students.
Number of charter schools in the 4 major cities in Tennessee
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- Tennessee Charter School Center, data courtesy of Hunter Schimpff, accessed June 14, 2016, http://www.tnchartercenter.org/
Pre-K/Kindergarten Access
Tennessee has a voluntary Pre-K initiative where at-risk 4-year-olds are given the opportunity to develop school readiness skills in state funded classrooms. In 2013–2014, over $85 million from the state education budget was allocated to school districts to operate 935 classrooms serving over 18,000 four-year-olds. Currently, well over half of Tennessee 3-and 4-year olds are still not attending school. In December 2014, the state won a $70 million federal grant to open 50 new pre-K classrooms in Memphis and Nashville.
Percentage of 3- and 4-year-olds attending school (public or private)
Note: These figures are estimates based on U.S. Census data.
- “Tennessee wins $70 million Federal Pre-K Grant.” Chalkbeat TN, last accessed August 2, 2016, http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2014/12/10/tennessee-wins-70-million-federal-pre-k-grant/#.V6nV7GSrQzU
- "American Fact Finder: Table B14003," U.S. Census Bureau, last accessed June 24, 2016, http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t.