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Shelby County · Tennessee

Memphis, TN public schools

Enrollment, school count, staffing and per-pupil spending for Memphis-Shelby County Schools — federal education data, not a star rating.

Yellow public school bus parked at dusk, illustrating local school district data

Quick answer

Memphis-Shelby County Schools is the primary public district for Memphis, TN. It enrolls 109,797 students in 222 schools with 6,885 full-time-equivalent teachers, and spends $12,482 per pupil, 28% below the $17,320 median across the metros covered here.

Students enrolled
109,797NCES Common Core of Data, 2021-22
Schools in the district
222Operating school count
Students per teacher
15.9Enrollment ÷ FTE teachers, not class size
Spending per pupil
$12,482Total current expenditure, FY2020

Who pays for schools in Memphis

Where the district's money comes from, FY2020.

Local revenue
38.3%
$531,013,000
State revenue
42.4%
$587,084,000
Federal revenue
19.3%
$267,885,000

Local revenue is mostly property tax, which is why the Memphis property tax rate and school funding move together. Of every dollar spent, about 51 cents reaches instruction — teacher salaries, benefits and classroom materials — with the rest covering transport, buildings, food service and administration.

Reading the Memphis numbers

What the 2021-22 NCES and FY2020 Census finance numbers say about this district.

$12,482 per pupil is 28% below the $17,320 metro median; only 14% of tracked districts spend less. Instruction takes 51 cents of each dollar — $6,415 per student — with the remainder on transport, buildings, food service and administration.

Funding is split roughly evenly — 38.3% local, 42.4% state — so both the local tax base and the TN aid formula matter to what this district can spend. Federal dollars are an outsized 19.3% of revenue, a share that tracks concentrated student poverty (Title I) and special-education enrollment.

109,797 students across 222 schools averages 495 students per building, and the district is larger than the typical district covered here (44,998 students). The 15.9:1 student-to-teacher ratio is ordinary for this set of districts (median 15.2:1). It counts all FTE teachers district-wide, so actual class sizes run higher.

Worth flagging: a federal share this large means the district is exposed to grant cycles. Title I and pandemic-era relief awards can move the per-pupil figure between survey years without any change in local taxation.

What this data covers

Read this before comparing districts.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools is a county-scale district, so its catchment reaches well past the Memphis city limits and these figures describe that wider area. Students in independent charters, private schools or regional vocational programs are not part of this enrollment count. Counts are from 2021-22 and money from FY2020 — different collection cycles, so do not compute a current cost per student from them directly.

Other Memphis datasets on this site.

Statewide: Tennessee cities · Tennessee ZIP codes · Tennessee sales tax · Tennessee counties

Source: NCES Common Core of Data + Census F-33, via Urban Institute Education Data · rates as published for 2021-22 / FY2020

NCES LEAID 4700148. Finance figures are Census Annual Survey of School System Finances (F-33) totals as redistributed by the Urban Institute Education Data API.