Enrollment continues to decline in a number of big-city school systems. In Washington, DC , the student population is down 8 percent from last year, in large part because of charter school expansion. And Cleveland's schools are serving fewer than 50,000 kids for the first time since 1894. (The district peaked at 150,000.) The cities are on the leading edge of this trend; with children from the baby boom echo now graduating from high school, many schools across the country are going to see a contraction in coming years-except places serving the influx of new immigrants.
Wondering why k-12 education doesn't seem like a salient political issue this year? Yes, it's mostly because of the economy and Iraq, but there are bigger trends at work. Even eight years ago, when schools were a top issue, a lot more families had children going through the system. Now they have moved on, and so has public attention.
Don't fret though; in another 15 years or so we'll see another expansion as the baby boomer's grandchildren start heading to school in droves.
