In 2014, according to federal government data, 1,369,355 students were enrolled in public school prekindergarten. They accounted for 2.72 percent of the nation's public school enrollment of 50,312,581.
But prekindergarten enrollment varies widely from state to state, the 2016 Digest of Education Statistics shows.
Texas easily outpaces other state—with more than 240,000 prekindergarten students, it has more than triple any other state. California, which has the most public school students overall—more than 6.3 million—has only about 76,000 students in prekindergarten. That equates to only 1.2 percent of all students, compared with 4.6 percent in Texas.
Wisconsin has the sixth-highest number of prekindergarten students—nearly 56,000—but that represents more than 6.4 percent of all Wisconsin students.
Here are the 10 states that reported the greatest number of prekindergarten students in fall 2014.