CHAPTER 2 Elementary And Secondary Education

CHAPTER 2Elementary and Secondary EducationThis chapter contains a variety of statistics on public and private elementary and secondary education.Data are presented for enrollments, teachers,schools, student performance, graduates, and expenditures. These data are derived from surveysconducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and other public and private organizations. The variety of information ranges from countsof students and schools to opinions of teachers andstudents concerning the state of education today.New data on charter schools will appear in the 2002edition of Digest of Education Statistics.EnrollmentsPublic elementary and secondary school enrollments increased by 6 percent from 1994 to 1999, butwhen examined separately, enrollment at the elementary and secondary levels exhibited different patterns. Between 1994 and 1999, public elementaryenrollment rose by 5 percent, while secondary enrollment increased by 9 percent (table 40).Preprimary education (nursery and kindergartenschools) enrollment has grown substantially.Preprimary enrollment of 3- to 5-year-olds rose by 14percent between 1990 and 2000. An important feature of the increasing participation of young childrenin preprimary schools is the increasing proportion infull-day programs. In 2000, about 53 percent of thechildren attended preprimary school all day compared with 39 percent in 1990 (table 43).Slowly increasing numbers and proportions of children are being served in programs for the disabled.During the 1990–91 school year, 11 percent of students were served in these programs compared with13 percent in 1999–2000. Some of the rise since1990–91 may be attributed to the increasing proportion of children identified as learning disabled, whichrose from 5 percent of enrollment to 6 percent of enrollment in 1999–2000 (table 52).Teachers and Other School StaffDuring the 1970s and early 1980s, public schoolenrollment decreased, while the number of teachersrose. As a result, the public school pupil/teacher ratiodeclined from 22.3 in 1970 to 17.9 in 1985. After1985, the number of pupils per teacher continueddownward, reaching 17.2 in 1990. The pupil/teacherratio was stable during the early 1990s, but began todecline again during the mid 1990s. By 2000, thepupil/teacher ratio had decreased to an estimated16.0 (table 65). The pupil/teacher ratio includesteachers for disabled students and other specialteachers, who generally are excluded from class sizecalculations. The average size for public elementaryclasses in 1993–94 was 24.1 pupils compared to thepupil/teacher ratio for teachers in elementary schoolsat 18.2 (tables 64 and 69).In 1993–94, 73 percent of public school teacherswere women, 33 percent were under 40, and 47 percent had a master’s degree or above. By comparison, about 75 percent of the 378,000 full-time andpart-time private school teachers were women. About42 percent of the private school teachers were underage 40, and 34 percent had a master’s or higher degree (table 68). New data from the Schools andStaffing Survey for 1999–2000 will be availablethrough the NCES Web Site during the first half of2002.Public school principals tended to be older andhave more advanced credentials than teachers. Also,they were more likely to be male. About 7 percent ofthe public school principals were under age 40 and99 percent had a master’s degree or above. About35 percent of the principals were women (table 87).The average salary for public school teachers grewslowly during the 1990s, reaching 42,898 in 2000–01. After adjustment for inflation, teachers’ salariesdeclined 1 percent between 1990–91 and 2000–01(table 77).The number of nonteaching staff employed by public schools grew at a faster rate than the number ofpupils and teachers in the 1970s. Between 1970 and1980, the proportion of total staff who were teachersdeclined from 60 percent to 52 percent (table 80).From 1980 through 1999, the number of teachersgrew at about the same rate as other public schoolstaff. In 1999, there were 8.3 pupils per staff member(total staff) compared with 9.8 pupils per staff member in 1980. In 1993, the number of pupils per staffmember at private schools was 9.3 (table 60).41

42ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATIONSchoolsOver the past several decades, the trend to consolidate small schools has brought a large decline inthe total number of public schools in the UnitedStates. In 1930, there were more than 247,000 publicschools, compared with around 92,000 today. Butthis number has grown in recent years, with an increase of 7,550 schools between 1990–91 and1999–2000 (table 89).The shift in structure of public school systems toward middle schools (grades 4, 5, or 6 to 6, 7, or 8)is continuing. The number of elementary schoolsrose by 9 percent to approximately 64,000 between1990–91 and 1999–2000, but middle schools rose by35 percent. Meanwhile, the number of junior highschools (grades 7 to 8 and 7 to 9) declined by 22percent (table 95).Elementary enrollment has risen faster than thenumber of schools, with the average elementaryschool size increasing as a result. Elementaryschools grew from an average of 449 students in1990–91 to 477 in 1999–2000 (table 97). During thesame time period, the average secondary school sizerose from 663 to 706. The rising numbers of alternative schools, which tend to be small, have mitigated the increase in the average size of secondaryschools. The average size of regular secondaryschools, which exclude alternative schools, specialeducation, and vocational education schools, rosefrom 684 to 785 between 1990–91 and 1999–2000.Schools tend to be smaller in predominantly ruralstates, such as South Dakota, Montana, and Nebraska, and larger in states with large urban populations, such as Florida, California, and Hawaii (tables 100 and 101).Completions and AchievementThe dropout rate among 16- to 24-year-olds (whichcounts General Education Development recipients asgraduates) suggests some decreases over the pasttwenty years. This dropout rate includes all personsin the 16- to 24-year-old age group regardless ofwhen they dropped out. Between 1980 and 2000, thedropout rate declined from 14.1 percent to 10.9 percent (table 108). The dropout rate statistic is basedon the civilian noninstitutionalized population, whichexcludes persons in prisons and persons not living inhouseholds.Most of the student performance data in the Digestare drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP assessmentshave been conducted using three basic designs. Themain NAEP reports current information for the nationand specific geographic regions of the country. It includes students drawn from both public and nonpublic schools and reports results for studentachievement at grades 4, 8, and 12. The main NAEPassessments follow the frameworks developed by theNational Assessment Governing Board, and uses thelatest advances i assessment methodology.Since 1990, the NAEP assessments have alsobeen conducted on the state level. States thatchoose to participate receive assessment results thatreport on the performance of students in that state.In its content, the state assessment is identical to theassessment conducted nationally. However, becausethe national NAEP samples were not, and are notcurrently designed to support the reporting of accurate and representative state-level results, separaterepresentative samples of students are selected foreach participating jurisdiction/state.NAEP long-term trend assessments are designedto give information on the changes in the basicachievement of America’s youth since the early1970s. They are administered nationally and reportstudent performance at ages 9, 13, and 17 and ingrades 4, 8, and 11 in writing. Measuring trends ofstudent achievement or change over time requiresthe precise replication of past procedures. Therefore,the long-term trend instrument does not evolvebased on changes in curricula or in educational practices.Long-term trend data on student achievement hasimproved in a number of areas. An overall increasewas seen in reading proficiency scores for 9- and 13year-olds from 1971, with 17-year-olds scoring aboutthe same in 1999 as in 1971. After significant gainsduring the 1970s, 9-year-old reading proficiency remained stable, with the 1999 score about the sameas 1980. Significant gaps in performance continue toexist between racial/ethnic subgroups and betweenmale and female students. Gender gaps favoring female students in reading at ages 13 and 17 were essentially the same in 1999 as in 1971. The gendergap favoring female 9-year-olds was smaller in 1999than in 1971 (table 112).The results of assessments in average writingachievement from 1984 to 1996 reveal a shift atgrades 4 and 8. After declining between 1984 and1990, average performance at grade 8 increased,and by 1996 had again returned to the earlier level.Also, at grade 4 there was an increase in performance between 1990 and 1996, countering downwardfluctuations in the 1980s, so that performance wasessentially unchanged between 1984 and 1996.Overall grade 11 writing performance declined between 1984 and 1996. Females outperformed malesat the 4th-, 8th-, and 11th-grade levels (table 119).Results from national assessments of mathematicsachievement indicate a significant improvement atages 9, 13, and 17 between 1973 and 1999. For 9year-olds, a period of stable performance during the1970s was followed by an 11-point increase in aver-