Total enrollment in public and private precollegiate schools is expected to grow by an estimated 10 percent by 2017, with elementary schools adding students at a faster pace than high schools, says a report released last week by the National Center for Education Statistics.
The number of students in elementary and secondary schools is projected to swell from 55.2 million in 2005, the latest year for which the federal statistics agency has actual data, to some 60.4 million over that 12-year period, says the report, which the nces posted online Sept. 17. That 10 percent growth rate compares with a rate of 14 percent between 1992 and 2005.
Enrollment growth at the elementary level is expected to quicken to 12 percent between 2005 and 2017, compared with 9 percent from 1992 to 2005. Growth in the numbers of high school students is expected to slow, from 26 percent in the 1992-2005 period to just 4 percent in the succeeding dozen years.
The report provides a host of data, not only on student enrollment nationwide and in the states, but also on teachers, education spending, and high school graduation, among other areas.
