The rapid demographic shift of American public schools
Pew has produced a good chart today, seen below, of U.S. Department of Education projections showing that the nation's public schools this fall will for the first time be majority-minority:
The demographic shift in public schools since just the late '90s has been remarkable, driven both by the decline of white enrollment and population growth among U.S.-born Hispanic and Asian children (this is not, Pew points out, a demographic story primarily about immigration). According to Pew's analysis of Census data, the number of U.S.-born Hispanic children aged 5 to 17 in the U.S. nearly doubled between 1997 and 2013.
White children, by comparison, make up nearly three-quarters of private school enrollment today.
It's important to note, though, that the increasing diversity of public school enrollment in America won't necessarily mean that public school classrooms will soon be more diverse. We have to look at demographics through geography — and education policy through housing patterns — as Pew demographer Conrad Hackett points out with this interesting suggestion:
More here:ww.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/18/the-rapid-demographic-shift-of-american-public-schools/