When schools reopen in August and September, Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American students will together make up a narrow majority of the nation’s public school students. The change marks far more than a statistical blip.
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, in just three years, Latino students alone will make up nearly 28 percent of the nation’s student population. The growth of the Latino student population growth is combined with a slow but steady decline in the number of white children attending public schools will transform the country’s schools.
As public schools increasingly become institutions serving large numbers of students of color, some states with largely white state legislatures and aging electorates have already proven unwilling to raise taxes or divert needed funds to meet the needs of public schools.
School funding and other public resource needs will become increasingly critical as children of color go on to become the majority of the U.S. workforce and total population by 2042.