Public school enrollment has recently exceeded the prior all time high to a new record and is expected to continue growing for the next decade.
For music and arts advocates this means the potential for more students. The real key is… can we keep our programs in place to actualy benefit svereal million more students?
Fueled by rising immigration and the baby boom echo, U.S. public school enrollment has increased steadily through the early 2000s and is expected to peak at an all-time high of 50 million in 2014, according to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics.
The Condition of Education 2005 found that 42 percent of public school students were racial or ethnic minorities in 2003, markedly up from 22 percent in 1972. The report attributed this increased diversity to the proportionate growth of Hispanic enrollment, from 6 percent in 1972 to 19 percent in 2003. It noted that Hispanic enrollment nationwide surpassed that of African American students for the first time in 2002, while in the West region, minority public enrollment exceeded White enrollment in 2003.
