Posted Oct. 14, 2011, at 7:40 p.m.
In the last decade, Maine’s youth population dropped
by nearly 10 percent. As a result nearly every school district in the
state has fewer students. This decline is predicted to continue for at
least the next two decades.
Yet spending on K-12 education continues to increase, putting these two trends on a collision course.
“Over the next 20 years we’re looking at K-12 enrollment going down,
absolutely,” said Laurie LaChance, director of the Maine Development
Foundation, which researches Maine education and its effects on the
state’s economy.
“That will touch the entire system,” she said, explaining that those
fewer young people will grow up and likely have even fewer children. “It
strikes at the heart of why we have to rethink this.”
According to U.S. Census data, Maine’s population of infants to
14-year-olds dropped by 9.5 percent from 2000 to 2010. That is a total
loss of more than 23,000 kids. The biggest drop was in 10- to
14-year-olds.
To put that in perspective, Maine’s youth population dropped more
than the total populations of Rockland, Rockport, Camden and Belfast
combined — all in a decade. And experts say those numbers will continue
to slide.
Meanwhile the population of 45- to 69-year-olds jumped 30 percent in
the same 10 years. That jump was from about 365,800 to 475,700 — an
increase of about 110,000. That leap is equivalent to adding Portland
and Bangor’s populations to that age group.
There are several factors involved with the changes in the youth
population, according to Amanda Rector, the state economist. One factor
is migration in and out of state. Another is age.
“An older population has fewer children, and Maine’s lack of racial
diversity also contributes to a low birth rate,” Rector said. White
families tend to be smaller than Hispanic families, for instance, she
said. With fewer babies, Maine has fewer schoolchildren.
Maine lost about 5 percent of its school-age children in just four years. In 2006, Maine had 202,240 students enrolled in public schools. By 2010, that number dropped to 192,202. The 2011 numbers are not in yet.
Every school district has seen fewer students in that time period,
except eight: Machias Bay Area, Orrington-Dedham, Auburn, Lewiston,
Houlton, Berwick, South Portland and Wells-Ogunquit. This doesn’t
include a few island and Indian schools that have very small student
populations. It also doesn’t include nonconforming school districts —
districts that didn’t comply with the state’s consolidation law or were
too small to be required to — for which data is harder to access.
Of the school districts that lost students, the decline typically was
fewer than 200 students. Brunswick was one exception and it closed two
schools this school year, but that was because the Navy base closed and
it lost 650 students.
LaChance of the Maine Development Foundation has studied the trend of
decreasing student enrollment as it relates to school budgets. If Maine
keeps doing what its doing, the state will be on a dangerous path, she
said.
For the 2000-01 school year,
total statewide K-12 spending was just under $1.5 billion, according to
figures from the Department of Education. That includes state funds,
known as general purpose aid to education, and money raised locally
through property taxes, as well as federal funds. By the 2009-10 school year, total spending had risen to slightly more than $2 billion. The state share was $921 million.
As a result, per-pupil spending has grown rapidly. In 2000-01, the
average K-12 per-pupil cost was $6,233. By 2009-10, it had risen to
$9,663, according to the department’s numbers. Although the increases have slowed in the last two years, the average increase over the decade was 5.2 percent.
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