A Special Back-to-School Report: The Baby Boom Echo

Fact Sheet and Case Studies

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Fact Sheet

Between 1996 and 2006.......

• Total public and private school enrollment will rise from a record 51.7 million to 54.6 million;
• Public high school enrollment is expected to increase by 15 percent;
• The number of high school graduates will increase 17 percent, 14 percent by 2001;
• About half of the states will have at least a 15 percent increase in the number of high school graduates, with the Western states having almost a 30 percent increase in high school graduates;
• College enrollment is projected to rise by 14 percent;
• Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans will be the fastest growing segments of the student population.

To maintain current K-12 student service levels in 2006, the nation will need about.....

• 190,000 additional teachers;
• Over 6,000 more schools;
• Approximately $15 billion in additional annual operating expenditures.

By 2030, the maturing of the baby boom echo generation will stabilize a long-term decline in the ratio of workers to retirees at 2.6 to 1.

Case Study #1

The rolling hills of Loudoun County, Va., mark the beginning of horse country west of Washington, D.C., but the county's emergence as a bedroom community for the nation's capital has school enrollments growing at a gallop.

Loudoun County's under-19 population has grown almost 40 percent in the last four years and is expected to continue growing. Loudoun County's enrollment is projected to grow over the next five years from 21,955 students this fall (the first time that Loudoun County eclipsed the 20,000 mark) to 34,762 students in 2001-02. Besides four schools that are now under construction, the district's six-year capital improvement plan calls for the construction of 11 elementary schools, two middle schools and three high schools, as well as more than $22 million in technology investments over the next three years. District planners say that the growth is spurred by the county's influx of young families. The number of kindergartners entering the system annually exceeds the number of high school graduates by several hundred.

There are no signs of the growth rate letting up anytime soon. New home construction continues to grow in Loudoun County, and county zoning officials have opened the way for developers to build another 53,000 residential units.

Case Study #2

For more than a decade, the Clark County, Nev., School District has ranked among the fastest growing districts in the nation. Enrollment in Clark County has almost doubled over the last decade, growing from 95,416 students in 1986-87 to an enrollment of 179,169 for the coming school year. Clark County Superintendent Brian Cram, who will oversee the opening of 15 new schools in the next two years, expects enrollment in his district to top a quarter of a million students by 2002.

Managing and financing such explosive growth is a constant concern for the district. Voters approved a $605 million bond issue in 1994 to finance the construction of 24 new schools and renovations at 114 existing schools. Those projects are already inadequate to meet the needs of the district, which is going back to the voters this fall seeking a $643 million bond issue.

A key component of the district's growth management strategy is a cooperative working relationship between the district and the City of Las Vegas. The city paid for infrastructure costs such as streets, sewers, and athletic fields at some new campuses, while the district opens schools to city residents for athletics and day care when schools are not in session.

Case Study #3

Fast-paced growth is an Olympic-sized issue for the Gwinnett County, Ga., Public Schools northeast of Atlanta. Gwinnett County school officials expect that their district will become the largest in Georgia by the end of the decade.

Overcrowded schools are already a problem there as 30 Gwinnett County schools enroll at least 100 students more than their designed capacity. To maintain current class sizes, Gwinnett County needs to build 778 classrooms by the end of the decade, and hire about 570 new teachers annually -- more than 300 of whom will be recruited for newly created positions.

Gwinnett County Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks says that a major challenge in managing that growth is to build schools that are not too big. He cited a new Gwinnett middle school that will open this fall to an enrollment of 2,150 students -- a larger figure than he wants, but a move that is necessitated by the influx of new students.

The impact of fast growth across Georgia led the state legislature to place a referendum on the November ballot asking voters whether to allow local school boards to seek a temporary sales tax increase as a way to finance school construction.

Case Study #4

The Broward County, Fla., Public Schools already ranks among the largest school systems in the nation with more than 218,000 students, and it continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. Although the district added 37 new schools and refurbished many existing schools over the past seven years, the district's projected capital needs over the next seven years total $2.4 billion. Funding from identifiable sources to date totals only $1 billion, leaving a projected shortfall of $1.4 billion.

Portable classrooms are such a commonplace part of the school system that some refer to Broward County as the "portable capital of the world" -- 2,144 portable classrooms are in use there. Thousands of other students attend classes in areas intended to be music and science rooms, labs, auditoriums, and other makeshift areas. Broward officials say that the district is adding 10,000 students a year. Broward's proximity to Miami, one of our nation's gateway cities, means that many of these children are recent immigrants.

Meanwhile, the space crunch is impeding the system's efforts to make greater use of technology in the classroom. The goal of Broward Superintendent Frank Petruzielo is to provide a minimum of four computers in every classroom for student use and one computer for teacher use. Petruzielo says that the goal is not reachable in the near future under the system's current funding outlook.