Statewide student enrollment over the past decade and a half tells a different story than a district-by-district breakdown: Rural areas continue to be drained of students while the gains are concentrated in the suburbs.<\/p>\n
By the raw certified enrollment total, the state is about 5,000 down from 2001-02 to 2015-16 (489,522.8 vs.\u00a0484,378). That is actually a recovery from a valley in 2010. But here’s the change: The top 20 districts by enrollment now educate 42% of Iowa’s students, up from 38% in 2001.<\/p>\n
From 2001 to 2015, six districts \u2014 Waukee, Ankeny, Iowa City\/Clear Creek Amana, Johnston, and Southeast Polk \u2014 added nearly 20,000 students while the rest of the state lost 25,000. <\/em>(I am grouping Iowa City and CCA together because, while Iowa City is much bigger, North Liberty and Coralville are split between them, and it’s the most effective way to get the total growth in the area.)<\/p>\n I was going to give year-by-year enrollment equivalents of these fast-growing districts for the last 15 years, but the lists got quite lengthy. To illustrate what I was going for, Waukee added <\/em>the entire enrollment of North Tama to its 2003-04 student body, and then added the entire enrollment of North Tama again<\/em> in 2014-15. Instead, here is the aggregate growth of 15 years and their equivalents. Between 2001 and 2015:<\/p>\n As the rural districts drop in enrollment, per-pupil funding shrinks accordingly, and that’s not the only squeeze on the financial end. For a decade the Legislature has put education funding on meager rations \u2014 annual allowable growth below 3 percent means expenses outpace the budget. Keeping expenses down means, in turn, keeping salaries down, and the effect of that is that instead of hiring “lifers” small districts become the equivalent of triple-A ball or small network affiliates, a stopover place to pay one’s dues before moving on to a bigger gig. Rapid turnover has its own effects on education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Statewide student enrollment over the past decade and a half tells a different story than a district-by-district breakdown: Rural areas continue to be drained of students while the gains are concentrated in the suburbs. By the raw certified enrollment total, … Continue reading \n