A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

As we begin the school year and look ahead to the coming decade it is clear that the increasing number of young people filling our nation's classrooms will be a defining feature of American education for years to come. This report, the second in a series, seeks to describe the impact of the increasing number of young people and gives special attention to the large number of teenagers who make up the "baby boom echo."

It is my very strong belief that the growing enrollment is a national issue and a local crisis in many school districts across this nation. Last year, the United States broke the 25-year-old enrollment record that was set by the baby boom generation in 1971. This year we will break last year's record with enrollment rising to 52.2 million, and we expect to break this record for many years to come.

As last year's report noted, four factors explain why our nation's school rolls are rising: the delay in marriage and child bearing among baby boomers; a higher birth rate among many minority Americans in comparison to white Americans, and the fact that minority Americans represent an increasing proportion of our nation's population; increased immigration; more young people enrolled in pre-K and kindergarten; and greater numbers of students staying in school. As we look to the future, several salient issues demand our attention:

First, there may be no short term solutions in the school districts that face the long term problem of rising enrollments. Unlike the previous baby boom (1947-61), there will be no sharp decline in enrollments after 2007. Instead, the student population will simply plateau at a much higher level as the number of births stabilizes. This important first finding suggests that many school districts may not be able to adequately meet the needs of their student population by simply buying more portables, or double-shifting students.

University High School: Surrounded by booming development on the east side of Orlando, Florida, University High School is experiencing its own population boom. Built in a suburban area, University meets capacity at 2,030 students. In 1996, a total of 3,165 students filled its classrooms. Student enrollment for this next year is projected to be 3,800, and in the next 3 to 5 years, enrollment will jump to 6,000 students. Although the campus will be absorbing a nearby former middle school site which can house 1,200 students, University will still be over capacity and it is continuing to grow. According to Principal Judy Cunningham, "When your school is overcrowded, you limit what you can teach." All of student life is affected by the high student enrollment: students are limited in the pep rallies, dances and assemblies that they can attend, and they eat lunch in one of five shifts. Cunningham wonders whether it is her job to ensure academic quality or to manage the logistics of a small town. The school district hopes that relief will come with the passage of a referendum implementing a 40 percent of a penny sales tax, which would apply directly to the construction of new schools and the renovation of existing sites.

Second, the majority of the young people who make up the "baby boom echo" will be teenagers. In the last decade (1985-1997), our nation's elementary schools faced the most pressure in terms of enrollment increases. In 1997, that pattern will change. The decade-long rise at the elementary school level will taper off with enrollment projected to grow by less than one percent, from 37.8 million to 38 million.

In contrast, secondary school enrollment will increase dramatically. "Here come the teenagers" is -in many ways- an understatement. In the next ten years, 1.7 million young people will enter our nation's high schools, an increase of 13 percent. California, our nation's most populous state, will see secondary school enrollment grow by 558,000 additional young people, an increase of 35.3 percent.

Hoover High School, in San Diego, California, educates students from all over the world. According to the Principal, Dr. Doris Alvarez, "If there is a crisis somewhere in the world, then Hoover will see a growth in enrollment." The student population in 1996-97 was 50.8 percent Hispanic, 21.9 percent African American and 19.7 percent Indochinese. Non- or limited-English-proficient students are the fastest growing segment of the school's population. As one of the larger schools in the district, Hoover has reached its full capacity at 1,900 students, but another 600 are projected to enroll in the next five years. The school anticipates the negative impact of an overcrowded campus and has established programs which will personalize the students' education. Recognized by the Department of Education as one of the top five urban high schools, Hoover has worked to meet the individual needs of its students. In the past ten years, Hoover's dropout rate has decreased from 13 percent to 2.3 percent. Additionally, 62 percent of the 1996 graduating class enrolled in postsecondary education. But high student enrollment will make it more difficult to maintain the effectiveness of personalized programs.

There are many implications to this shift in enrollment patterns. High schools cost more to build than elementary and secondary schools, and require more space and land. The average elementary school costs $6.3 million to build compared to $15.3 million for an average high school.

Recruiting qualified teachers will continue to be a problem, and the current effort by states like California and New York to reduce class size will place an even greater demand on the teaching pool. In addition, high schools will need more guidance counselors, and the sheer number of teenagers will require this nation to re-double its efforts to help these young people stay away from drugs. Teachers and administrators often find it difficult to get to know students in large schools and as a result discipline can be more of a problem. More important, many young people who need extra attention simply get lost in the shuffle.

Third, states are meeting the challenge of overcrowded schools with varying success. To address the problems related to rising enrollments, states are putting bond issues on voter ballots to support school construction, authorizing localities to raise their sales taxes, leasing portable and new facility space, and considering the extension of the school year. Many local districts are also trying to pass bond issues and raise local taxes.

Georgia, for example, has recently authorized localities to raise local sales taxes by one cent as a vehicle for funding school construction, and 40 of 180 districts have done so. Cobb County School District is the only large district where this initiative has failed to date. Those initiatives are expected to raise between $2.4 and $2.9 million over the next five years. In North Carolina, where overcrowding is an issue at all levels, taxpayers overwhelmingly support school bond issues, passing 15 of 15 proposed since 1995. In Mesa Unified School District in Arizona, bond issues are also widely supported despite the fact that 70 percent of the community doesn't have children in the schools.

In Alabama, in contrast, where there is overcrowding in suburban areas and school facilities are (on average) 30 to 40 years old, school-related bond issues and tax increases are rarely supported. Similarly, in Illinois, fewer than two percent of districts were successful in passing tax rate increases for capital improvements. According to a recent state survey, shortfalls for funding needed school construction projects are expected because the districts estimated that a total of $7 billion of infrastructure work will be needed over the next decade.

Salem High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia was built in 1989 at a cost of $20.8 million. At 258,862 square feet, it was designed to accommodate 2,000 students. Today, in 1997, the school's population stands at 2,615 and climbing. Seventeen portable classrooms will be used this fall to accommodate the rising enrollment. E. Wayne Sykes, the school principal, says, "being in the hallway when classes change can be interesting. You can end up in a place different from where you were heading. The tide just sweeps you along." Most schools in the Virginia Beach School District are about 15 percent over capacity, and have implemented strategies to deal with the problem of overcrowding. The district has approximately 372 portable classrooms, but does not use all of them due to an aggressive building policy. It will be 2002 before a new high school opens in Virginia Beach. Originally planned for a 2001 opening, the city delayed capital funding for the $41 million, 277,500 square foot facility. In 2001, the student population at Salem High School will stand at 3,300. According to its most recent School Facility Status Survey, the state of Virginia estimates that nearly one-third of existing schools have classrooms that are overcrowded; 7,900 new classrooms are needed over the next five years; and that deferred maintenance in more than half of Virginia's schools is an increasing concern.

Fourth, a growing body of research has linked student achievement and behavior to the physical building conditions and overcrowding. Decaying environmental conditions can affect the learning as well as the health and the morale of staff and students. Class space is limited and students are crammed into libraries, gymnasiums, laboratories, lunchrooms, and even closets. Crowded classroom conditions not only make it difficult for students to concentrate on their lessons, but inevitably limit the amount of time teachers can spend on anything beyond the barest minimum of required material. A 1996 study by the National Association of Secondary School Principals entitled, Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution suggests that "high schools must break into units of no more than 600 students so that teachers and students can get to know each other better."

John I. Leonard Community High School: In Palm Beach County, Florida, 18 high schools must make room for 7,000 to 8,000 new students entering the school district every year. John I. Leonard Community High School is one of the most severely overcrowded and expects enrollment to increase as young families continue to move into the area. Over-crowding has significantly affected student life on campus. Principal Hugh Brady describes the hallways during passing periods as "rush hour traffic with a wreck on the inter-state." The biggest problem facing Leonard is coping with the influx of ninth grade students. The school is equipped to teach a freshman class of 600; the latest ninth grade class enrollment will be 1,100. Over-crowding has exacerbated the dropout rate, as Brady admits that "kids get lost in the shuffle."

Fifth, as a nation we cannot expect to raise academic standards by continuing our historic pattern of lowering teacher standards in times of rising enrollments. Not all of our nation's schools face teacher shortages. However, many school districts with quickly growing student enrollments, especially those in large cities, already face an incredible demand for qualified teachers. New York City and the Los Angeles Unified School District each report needing to hire at least 3,000 teachers for the start of this school year. Las Vegas/Clark County School District in Nevada, the nation's fastest-growing district, has needed to hire 1,400 teachers for the 1997-98 school year.

The number of K-12 public and private classroom teachers is projected to rise from 2.99 million to 3.34 million between 1995 and 2007--a 12 percent increase. The one-year increase from fall 1996 to fall 1997 is projected to be 42,000 teachers. While the number of elementary school teachers is expected to increase 5 percent between 1997 and 2007, to about 2 million, the number of secondary school teachers is projected to increase by 14 percent, from 1.2 to 1.4 million.

New York City public schools enroll more than one million students in grades K-12. This year, the district projects an additional 18,000 students across the system. This increase by itself requires the city to hire 450 additional teachers. In all, the city has been working to fill 3,600 to 3,800 teaching positions for the upcoming school year due to the student enrollment increase and other factors such as teacher attrition and retirement. In addition, New York State recently approved funds to reduce class sizes at the high school level, thereby increasing the need for teachers. The need is not uniform across the city and across subject areas. There is no shortage of state-certified elementary school teachers, for example. However, teachers of certain subjects, such as mathematics, science, and bilingual education, are scarce. To take just one example, this means that new, uncertified bilingual education teachers, while they are proficient in English and another language, may not have taken any education courses or had previous classroom experience. Uncertified teachers, when they are hired, must begin to follow a plan to gain certification within a prescribed time. Approximately 6,800 teachers out of 65,000 lack certification. New York City has a number of recruitment strategies to attract qualified teachers where they are most needed. The city reports that it has already filled 2,800 of its vacancies for September 1997 with certified teachers. For example, George Washington High School in Manhattan is a school under re-design, and more than 60 vacancies were projected for the new school year. As a result of early and extensive recruiting efforts, particularly for bilingual teachers, these vacancies have been filled.

When schools face teacher shortages, they often are forced to hire teachers who are not fully qualified. Approximately 13 percent of teachers lack full certification in their main assignments; in their other assignment fields, only about half are fully certified. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future reports that in recent years, more than 50,000 people who lack the training required for their jobs have entered teaching annually on emergency or provisional licenses.

Nationwide, 36 percent of public school teachers whose main teaching assignments are in English, foreign languages, mathematics, science, or social studies have neither an undergraduate major or minor in the subjects they teach. Many school districts face shortages of certified teachers in particular fields. In a survey done last year by Recruiting New Teachers, Inc., 85 percent of urban districts reported an immediate need for special education teachers; 69 percent for science teachers; 67 percent for math teachers; and 64 percent for bilingual education teachers. Because most of the increase in student enrollment will occur at the high school level, shortages of qualified teachers in specific subject areas can be expected to grow worse over the next decade.

Sixth, a new consensus needs to be formed that crosses generational lines so that all Americans see their local schools as "centers of community." Thousands of schools will be built and substantially remodeled in the next several years to accommodate record-breaking student enrollments and to replace or modernize the more than a third of the nation's existing schools that are currently over 50 years old. With schools built in approximately 50- to 60-year cycles, this presents a historic opportunity to design physically and academically schools where several generations of American children will be educated.

Done right, these 21st century schools can be built in ways that will be conducive to technology-rich, personalized learning environments that are in schools open to --and even the hub of-- the community. Absent strong leadership, however, this nation may pour billions of dollars into large, impersonal factory-model schools with designs from the early 20th century. Education and civic leaders need to reach out to the larger community, including our nation's senior citizens, to make the case that school buildings can have multi-purpose use and be "centers of community" for Americans of all ages.

Miramar High School, in Broward County, Florida, expects to file for "critically overcrowded" status within the next 3 to 5 years, as student enrollment continues to increase at an astronomical rate. About 2,065 students are projected to enroll in Miramar this year, down from 2,600 students attending two years ago before a new high school was constructed. But enrollment should reach 2,700 by the year 2002. Principal Ray Henderson affirms that "the new high school is only a band-aid solution." Student morale is declining as bathroom lines get longer and parking spaces become scarce. The cafeteria, which holds 700 people, must serve 1,000 students in 30 minutes. Miramar lacks the necessary technological tools to teach all students the skills they need to know. Last year, the school decided to sacrifice hiring new teachers and purchase computer equipment instead. Mobilizing public support to issue local bond issues has been difficult. A referendum to increase the sales tax by one percent in 1995 was soundly defeated.

Seventh, the rising number of young people attending high school will eventually have a profound impact on this nation's system of higher education. Currently, 65 percent of all of our nation's high school graduates are attending college--a new national record. In a few short years, however, many more young high school graduates will be filling out applications for colleges, taking the SATs and seeking student loans and other forms of financial assistance. As this report notes, there will be a 21 percent increase in the number of full-time college students in the next ten years, while part-time enrollment is projected to increase by only 6 percent.

The increasing demand for a college education and the greater number of young people seeking to go to college gives our nation's system of higher education a unique opportunity to play a powerful role in the current effort to raise standards at the secondary level. By raising their own standards for admission, this nation's many colleges and universities can send a powerful message that they expect nothing less than the best in applicants. In addition, our nation's high schools need to be even more demanding in designing their curriculum for the 21st century.

Thompson School District in Loveland, Colorado took a bold step to redesign its high schools by instituting ambitious, academic curriculum-wide standards and assessments. The district's standards now exceed those set by the state. Each student now has an integrated Career and Academic Plan (CAP), developed by the counseling staff, student, parents, and teachers. Through ties to the Berthoud and Loveland Chambers of Commerce, the three high schools have developed business partnerships with major employers. The district has also established strong partnerships with nearby postsecondary institutions. One significant mark of improved student achievement has been the jump in postsecondary enrollment. Over the last five years, the percentage of students going on to two? or four?year colleges has jumped from 45, 50 and 55 percent to 78, 70 and 75 percent at Loveland, Thompson Valley and Berthoud High Schools respectively. The dropout rate has also decreased from 6.8 percent to 4.4 percent in five years.

Ensuring access to America's system of higher education continues to be one of the chief goals of the federal government. Historically, 75 percent of all student aid comes from the federal government. President Clinton has moved aggressively to prepare for the growing number of full-time college students by increasing Pell Grants, creating the $1,500 Hope Scholarship program to benefit college freshmen and sophomores and establishing a Lifetime Learning tax credit for juniors, seniors, graduate students and the many working Americans who want to go back to school. Colleges and universities for their part need to find ways to prepare for the growing number of full-time students who will be entering their classrooms and, at the same time, to hold down tuition increases.

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