U.S. student population sets record

WASHINGTON -- More than 30 years after becoming the largest group of schoolchildren in U.S. history, baby boomers have finally lost their record -- to their children.

A total of 49.6 million children attended public and private school in 2003, beating the previous high mark of 48.7 million, set in 1970 when the baby boom generation was in school.

The growth is largely due to all the children who were born in the late 1940s to early 1960s and have since become parents themselves, the Census Bureau said Wednesday. Rising immigration played a part, too, in pushing enrollment past the 1970 record of 48.7 million.

"You could have predicted this back in 1970 when we had all those kids," said Mark Mather, a demographer for the Population Reference Bureau, which assesses population trends.

"We knew they were going to have kids of their own. We have this classic echo effect going on."

Even if it isn't surprising, the record tally of students in the first 12 grades poses steep challenges for schools: recruiting teachers, helping children who don't speak English, keeping class sizes manageable and coming up with enough financial aid for college students.

In population rings outside urban areas and in Western states such as Nevada and California, the growth has been intense, increasing demands on schools.

"They just really don't have the fiscal capacity to match this," said Scott Young, senior policy specialist in education for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In districts outside Atlanta, Houston and Las Vegas, enrollment has soared more than 20 percent in last five years, said Bruce Hunter, who directs lobbying for the American Association of School Administrators. His group has identified more than 400 such districts.

"The pressures are to stay up with it, to hire, to get the classrooms staffed, to find quality principals," Hunter said. "But the joy of it is you have this tremendous opportunity, because the communities have a real clear stake, so you have vibrant school systems."

Areas of decline

In other parts of the country, such as the upper Midwest, the school population has declined in some counties, Mather said. "Some of those kids are driving an hour or two on a bus to get to school because there aren't enough kids to keep local schools open," he said.

Immigration helped fueled the boom. A total of 22 percent of students had at least one foreign-born parent, including 91 percent of Asian children and 66 percent of Hispanic youngsters.

Many high-growth states have not prepared well for that racial and ethnic transformation, said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. With the largest ever high school graduating class coming soon, colleges are being pressed to provide capacity for everyone while keeping tuition affordable.

"These kids are coming along at a time when -- unlike the baby boomers -- their chances of a middle-class life without college are almost nil," Callan said. "It's going to drive higher education policy over the next few years. This is a huge challenge."

During the peak enrollment year during the baby boomers' time in school, almost eight in 10 students were non-Hispanic whites. In 2003, 60 percent of students were white, 18 percent were Hispanic, 16 percent were black and 4 percent were Asian.

Yet the diversity of the teaching corps has not nearly kept pace, said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, which is working to address that disparity.

"The question is, what's going to be the match?" Weaver said. "It's not that the teachers who are not minorities cannot teach -- they can. But what's going to be done to create an excellent environment for all teachers and students?"

The enrollment growth is likely to continue through this year, according to the Census Bureau report. Enrollment is expected to drop slightly through 2010 -- due to a decline in births from 1991 to 1997 -- but then pick up again, the Census figures show.

All the estimates are based on survey responses from a sample of the population in 2003.