Chapter 1
An Overview of American Education

American education has always faced challenges. Debates about the purposes of schools, the benefits of education, the best approach to teaching and learning, and calls for reform of the system have been common in the history of education in the United States. Since the 1980s the nation has been working to resolve such critical issues as low academic performance, high dropout rates, and drug use and violence in schools. Parents worry about the escalating cost of a college education. Political and community leaders question the ability of U.S. schools to produce high school graduates capable of competing in an increasingly technical and international environment. Educational leaders raise concerns about the impacts of poverty on education, and about the adequacy of school resources. Voters and legislators debate the merits of alternative schools, including whether parents who educate their children in private schools should receive federal or state subsidies. Calls for school accountability are heard from both taxpayers and elected officials.

Despite these problems, the United States remains one of the most highly educated nations in the world. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in fall 2003 approximately 79.7 million Americans were involved either directly or indirectly in providing or receiving formal education. About 70.7 million students were enrolled in schools and colleges, and 4.2 million instructors were teaching at the elementary, secondary, or college level. Another 4.8 million people were professional, administrative, and support personnel at educational institutions. (See Table 1.1.)

EDUCATION LEVEL OF POPULATION HAS GROWN

The number of school years completed among Americans age twenty-five and older has been increasing. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 1940 about one in four Americans (24.5%) twenty-five and older had completed four years or more of high school, but almost one in seven (13.7%) had completed fewer than five years of elementary school. By 2002 in the same age group, 84.1% of Americans had completed high school, while only 1.6% had fewer than five years of formal education. In 1940 less than 5% of the population twenty-five and older had completed four or more years of college; by 2002 about 26.7% had done so. (See Table 1.2 and Figure 1.1.)

Among people ages twenty-five to twenty-nine, 86.4% had completed four years of high school or more in 2002, while 29.3% had completed four or more years of college. White Americans were more likely than African-Americans or Hispanic Americans to have completed both high school and college. (See Table 1.2.)

SCHOOL ENROLLMENT

Virtually all American children five to seventeen years old are enrolled in school. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2001 more than 95% of all young people in this age group attended school. The enrollment of three- and four-year-olds has increased substantially since 1980, from 36.7% in that year to 52.4% in 2001. (See Table 1.3.)

The proportion of people enrolled in school drops sharply after age eighteen. By this age young people either graduate from or leave high school and may not immediately go on to any form of higher education. However, the proportion of older teens attending school has increased since 1980. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2001 the proportion of eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds enrolled in school reached 61%, up from 46.4% in 1980. (See Table 1.3.)

Enrollment Numbers Change

The number of students enrolled in elementary and secondary schools and in colleges is roughly proportional to the birth rates of the previous two decades. After World War II and the Korean conflict, the nation experienced a "baby boom" (1946–64) as returning soldiers settled down to start families. Consequently, school enrollment grew rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s as these babies matured to school age. According to the U.S. Department of Education, total enrollment peaked at sixty-one million in 1975, a number not attained again until 1991. Elementary enrollment, which includes the figures for public pre-kindergarten through grade eight and private kindergarten through grade eight, reached a record high of 36.7 million in 1969, and high school enrollment peaked at 15.7 million in 1976. (See Table 1.4.)

Birth rates declined as the baby boom waned, and so did school enrollments in the 1970s. An "echo effect" occurred in the 1980s, when those born during the baby boom started their own families. This increase in birth rates triggered an increase in school enrollment in the early 1990s. In 1991 the enrollment of students at schools of all levels was 61.7 million. In the years following 1991, school enrollment grew about 1% to 2% annually, to 69.8 million in 2001. (See Table 1.4.)

After a high of 36.7 million in 1969, elementary enrollment in public and private schools gradually declined and leveled off in the late 1980s at around thirty-three million. Elementary enrollment then rose through the 1990s to about thirty-nine million in 2001. It is expected to stay fairly stable through 2013. (See Table 1.4.)

Public high school enrollment, which began to decline in the late 1970s, started to increase again in the 1990s and is expected to continue to grow until 2008, after which it will decline slightly until 2013. College enrollments, unlike elementary and secondary enrollments, have risen consistently and are expected to reach almost 18.2 million by 2013. (See Table 1.4.)

EDUCATIONAL DIFFERENCES

Race and Ethnicity

The marked difference in educational attainment that once existed between whites and minorities has narrowed, although there are still significant gaps. According to the U.S. Department of Education, about 88.7% of white adults age twenty-five and older were high school graduates in 2002, while 79.2% of African-Americans and 57% of Hispanics were graduates. The most significant advances can be seen among young adults ages twenty-five to twenty-nine, where 93% of whites, 87.6% of African-Americans, and 62.4% of Hispanics were high school graduates in 2002, compared to 41.2% of whites and 12.3% of blacks and other races in 1940. (See Table 1.2.)

In 1940 white adults age twenty-five and older were 3.7 times more likely than African-Americans and other minorities to have completed four years of college (4.9% versus 1.3%). More than sixty years later, whites twenty-five and older were 1.7 times more likely to complete four years of college than African-Americans and 2.6 times more likely to complete four years of college than Hispanics. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2002, 29.4% of whites, 17.2% of African-Americans, and 11.1% of Hispanics completed four or more years of college. More than one-third of white

young adults (35.9%) aged twenty-five to twenty-nine were college graduates, compared to 18% of blacks and 8.9% of Hispanics in the same age group. (See Table 1.2.)

Gender

Traditionally, women were slightly more likely than men to complete high school but less likely to go on to college. In recent years the differences in high school graduation rates have disappeared. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2002 more than 84% of both women and men age twenty-five and older had completed four years of high school or more. The proportion of women age twenty-five and older graduating from college has increased steadily, from 3.8% in 1940 to 25.1% in 2002. Nevertheless, the proportion of male students (28.5% in 2002) who completed four or more years of college was still higher. This does not hold true across race and ethnicity. White males (31.7%) were more likely than white females (27.3%) to have completed four or more years of college, but African-American and Hispanic males (16.5% and 11%, respectively) were less likely than African-American and Hispanic females (17.7% and 11.2%, respectively) to have completed four or more years of college in 2002. (See Table 1.2.)

PROJECTIONS TO 2013

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) estimates that the total public and private elementary and secondary enrollment will increase from 54.2 million in 2002 to 56.4 million in 2013. Enrollment in public pre-kindergarten through eighth grade was projected to hit its lowest level in 2005, and then begin a modest climb to 35.4 million. Public enrollment in grades nine through twelve is expected to rise through 2007, and then start to fall slightly. The number of people attending degree-granting institutions of higher learning is projected to increase from 16.1 million in 2002 to 18.2 million by 2013. (See Table 1.4.)

EDUCATION SPENDING

According to the U.S. Department of Education, expenditures for public and private education from pre-primary through graduate school rose to an estimated high of $780.1 billion for the 2001–02 school year. Expenditures for elementary and secondary schools reached $462.7 billion (59% of total education spending), and outlays for colleges and universities were estimated at $317.4 billion (41%). In 2001–02 the United States spent 7.7% of its gross domestic product (GDP—the total value of goods and services produced within the United States) on education. More than fifty years before, in the 1949–50 school year, the United States spent $8.9 billion, or 3.3% of its GDP, on education. (See Table 1.5.)