WASHINGTON
The number of Hispanic students in the nation’s public schools nearly doubled from 1990 to 2006, accounting for 60 percent of the total enrollment growth, a report by the Pew Hispanic Center notes.
The report, “One-in-Five and Growing Fast: A Profile of Hispanic Public School Students,” a statistical portrait of the students’ demographic, language, and family background, also finds that 10 million Hispanic students now attend U.S, public schools, accounting for 20 percent all public school students.
Growth in Hispanic enrollment is expected to continue for decades, according to a recently released U.S. Census Bureau population projection. In 2050, school-age Hispanic children are projected to outnumber school-age non-Hispanic White children.
Overall, Hispanics are the largest minority group in the public schools in 22 states, the center said. .In 2006, it noted, Hispanics were about half of all public school students in California, up from 36 percent in 1990. They were more than 40 percent of enrollments in three additional states (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) and between 20 per cent and 40 per cento all public school students in five states (Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Florida and New York).
The Pew Hispanic Center is a non-partisan research organization based in Washington, D.C. and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
According Pew, the report’s key findings were as follows:
