For the Record: Enrollment Surges to 51.7 Million

By Jeff Archer

History is being made in the nation's classrooms this month: K-12 enrollment is expected to surpass the record set a quarter-century ago.

And that, according to a new report by the Department of Education, is just the beginning. This fall's estimated enrollment of 51.7 million students, in both public and private schools, surpasses the record of 51.3 million set in the 1971-72 school year, and the number of new students entering U.S. schools will continue to rise, setting records each year until 2006, the report says.

"We're now only at the midpoint of a long, slow wave of rising enrollment," Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley said in releasing the report at a news conference...