Back to School Time!

Summertime is winding down, and summer vacations are coming to an end. It’s back-to-school time! It’s a time that many children eagerly anticipate — catching up with old friends, making new ones and settling into a new daily routine. Parents and children alike are scanning the newspapers and Web sites looking for upcoming sales to shop for a multitude of school supplies and the latest clothing fads and essentials. This edition of Facts for Features highlights the many interesting statistics associated with the return to classrooms by our nation’s students and teachers.

Back-to-School Shopping
$6.6 billion
The amount of money spent at family clothing stores in August 2005. Only in October, November and December — the holiday shopping season — were sales equal or higher. Similarly, bookstore sales in August 2005 totaled $2.2 billion, an amount approached in 2005 only by sales in January and December. (The dollar volume estimates have not been adjusted for seasonal variations, holiday or trading day differences or price changes.) To do your back-to-school shopping, choices of retail establishments abound: In 2004, there were 24,050 family clothing stores, 6,520 children and infants clothing stores, 27,253 shoe stores, 9,207 office
supplies and stationery stores, 22,902 sporting goods stores, 11,218 bookstores and 9,360 department stores.

Students
75.5 million
The number of children and adults enrolled in school throughout the country — from nursery school to college.
That amounts to more than one-fourth of the U.S. population age 3 and older.

Pre-K through 12 Enrollment
54%
Percentage of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in school,
up from 10 percent in 1964, when these data were
first collected.
Back to School Time!

68%
Percentage of children enrolled in kindergarten who attend all day.

55 million
The projected number of students to be enrolled in the nation’s elementary and high schools (grades K- 12) this fall.

12%
Projected percentage of elementary and high school students enrolled in private schools this fall.

41%
Percentage of elementary and high school students who are minorities (i.e., people who are other than non- Hispanic white).

22%
Percentage of elementary and high school students with at least one foreign-born parent. This includes 5 percent who were foreign-born themselves. Languages

10 million
Number of school-age children (5 to 17) who speak a language other than English at home. These children make up nearly 1-in-5 in this age group. Most of them (7.1 million) speak Spanish at home. Lunchtime

29 million
Average number of children participating each month in the national school lunch program.

9.9 billion
The nation’s total apple production, in pounds, in 2005. The chances are good that the apples your children present to their teachers or enjoy for lunch were grown in Washington state, which accounted for more than half of the nation’s total production. College

17.6 million
The projected number of students enrolled in the nation’s colleges and universities this fall. This is up from 12.4 million a quarter-century ago.

38%
Percentage of all college students age 25 and older. The majority of these older students (59 percent) attend school part-time.

31%
Percentage of undergraduates attending two-year institutions.

Learning and Earning
21%
Percentage of high school students who were employed
as of October 2004.

50%
Percentage of full-time college students who were employed
as of October 2004

How Many Schools?
95,615
Number of public elementary and secondary schools. The corresponding number of private elementary and
secondary schools is 29,273.

4,216
Number of institutions of higher learning that grant college degrees.

1.1 Million
Number of students who are homeschooled. That is 2 percent of all students ages 5 to 17.

Teachers and Other School Personnel
6.8 million
Number of teachers in the United States. The bulk of them (2.6 million) teach at the elementary and middle school level. The remainder include those teaching at the postsecondary, secondary and preschool and kindergarten levels.

$57,300
Average annual salary of public elementary and secondary
school teachers in Connecticut as of the 2003- 2004 school year — among the highest of any state in the nation. Teachers in South Dakota received among the lowest pay —$33,200. The national average was $46,800.

$14.18
Average hourly wage for the nation’s school bus drivers.
Custodians earned $12.61 while cafeteria workers made

$10.33.
Technology
14.2 million
Number of computers available for classroom use in the nation’s 114,700 elementary and secondary schools as of the 2005-2006 school year; that works out to one computer for every four students.

100%
Percentage of public schools with Internet access as of fall 2003.

83% and 43%
Percentage of children ages 3 to 17 using a computer and the Internet, respectively, at school as of fall 2003.

75%
The percentage of children ages 3 to 17 accessing the Internet in fall 2003 — whether at home, school or elsewhere — to complete school assignments. This was the most common reason for children to use the Internet.

66%
The percentage of children ages 3 to 17 using a computer
at home in fall 2003 to complete school assignments. This was the second most common home computer use for children, behind playing games.

The Rising Cost of College
$12,605
Average tuition, room and board (for in-state students)
at the nation’s four-year public colleges and universities
for an entire academic year; that is more than double the corresponding figure in 1990

$34,698
Average tuition, room and board at the nation’s fouryear
private colleges and universities for one complete academic year; that is more than double the corresponding 1990 figure.

The Rewards of Staying in School
$74,602
Average annual earnings of workers age 18 and older with an advanced degree. This compares with $51,206 a year for those with bachelor’s degrees, $27,915 for those with a high school diploma only and $18,734 for those without a high school diploma.

$62,236
Average starting salary offered to bachelor’s degree candidates in petroleum engineering, among the highest of any field of study. At the other end of the spectrum were those majoring in the humanities; they were offered an average of $31,565.

Graduation
3.2 million
Projected number of high school diplomas that will be awarded this school year.

2.9 million
Number of college degrees expected to be conferred this school year.

Government Spending on Education
$8,287
The per-pupil expenditure on elementary and secondary education nationally in 2004. New Jersey ($12,981) spent the most among states or stateequivalents, followed by New York ($12,930), the District of Columbia ($12,801), Vermont ($11,128) and Connecticut ($10,788). Utah ($5,008) spent the least per student, followed by Idaho ($6,028), Arizona
($6,036), Oklahoma ($6,176) and Mississippi ($6,237).

Editor’s note: The preceding data were collected from a variety of sources and may be subject to sampling variability and other sources of error. Questions or comments should be directed to the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office: telephone: 301-763-3030; fax: 301-457-3670; or email:pio@census.gov.

Asian American Times is published monthly by Asian American Times Inc. with corporate office at 304 Turquoise Street, Milpitas California
Tel (408) 262-0117  Fax. (408) 369-1701, e-mail: editor@aatimes.com. Reproduction, modification, and/or use of all materials on this site are prohibited unless
with written permission by the Publisher. Copyright © 2006 Asian American Times. All Rights Reserved.