A year ago I created a chart showing TUSD’s total enrollment from 2000 to 2015, using figures from the page on TUSD’s website, School Enrollment by Gender & Ethnicity on Any Day. I’ve expanded the chart to include 2016 figures.
Like last year, I used the enrollment numbers from the 175th day, which seem to have fewer random ups and downs than other school days I looked at. On this year’s chart, I expanded the width of the bars for the last six years so they could be seen more easily.
Here’s the new chart.
The chart shows a decline in enrollment from 2000 to 2016 from 61,280 to 47,661, a loss of 13,619 students. But it also shows the rate of loss of students changed over the years. From 2000 to the 2006-7 school year, the district lost an average of 350 students a year. Starting in 2007 and continuing through the 2011-12 school year, the average losses more than quadrupled, to 1,600 a year. After that, the rate slowed, then increased, then slowed again. TUSD lost 417 students during the most recent school year, which is significantly lower than any loss in the previous eight years.
So many variables are in play here, it’s impossible for me to draw any simple cause-and-effect conclusions from the changes in the rate of loss over the years, other than to say the trend is a positive one for TUSD. Is the slowing rate of loss because charter schools aren’t expanding at the same rate they were starting ten years ago, so they’re not pulling an increasing number of students away from the district? Have changes in the size of Tucson’s student population contributed to the numbers of students lost by TUSD? Have TUSD’s recruitment and retention efforts improved over the past four years? All of those factors and more may be in play.
In another post, I’ll get a little more granular with the enrollment numbers, looking at changes at various grade levels over the years. It’ll get pretty wonky, and like this post, I won’t try to draw clear conclusions from the numbers, but I found some trends I thought were worth mulling over.
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2016.
But could a loss of students simply mean there were fewer K enrollees than Seniors graduating HS? (COT population has aged through the school years.)
Looking at it again…they lost almost 8,000 kids in 5 years. 2007-2012. Most important is why.
Also research in what years Catalina Foothills, Tanque Verde and Vail districts started high schools. There was a significant effect from this. Add in St. Gregory and the two new Catholic high schools in Tucson.
2006 was the year students in TUSD were allowed to attend other districts. If you look at District 16 enrollment in 2006 2007 you will see an increase.
Cat Fthills started in 92. Vail opened in 2001 (Cienega). TV I think you have to live in the district. San Miguel Catholic only has about 150 students grades 9-12. The Gregory enrollment may be lower than the Catholics but it hasn’t changed much in 25 years.
David, what makes you think the numbers TUSD is providing on its website are accurate? TUSD has been caught so frequently in lies, evasions, misrepresentations and inaccuracies in its communication with the public during the last three years, there’s no trust left. At this point I and others who have taken the time and exerted the effort necessary to pay attention and consult multiple sources of information trust data provided by the district that has not undergone cross-checking / independent verification about as much as we’d trust Vladimir Putin to give us the “real scoop” on what has gone on in Chechnya if we sat down with him and had a “heart to heart” on the topic.
Wherever information provided by the district seems to indicate that things are improving, it is especially suspect because this is exactly where past misrepresentations have occurred, and during the period immediately preceding an election that will determine whether or not Ms. Grijalva and her associates will maintain control of the Board is prime time for it. This is how the sausage gets made, right? Let’s not have a case of the vapors over a little judiciously placed political massaging of the numbers, right?
So noodle around with TUSD stats as much as you like, what you report on that basis alone is not worth the time it will take to read it.
P.S. I do not know a single real person unaffiliated with the Grijalva network who has had direct experience of TUSD schools during the last three years who will tell you that services delivered to students have improved rather than deteriorated. Add that datum to what you get out of TUSD stats.
So you are saying that there is no accountability on the public school system? I thought these were factual, audited and proven records.
It has become an asylum.
No, Rat T, I am not saying there is no accountability in “the public school system.” I am saying there have been serious and repeated failures of governance and administrative accountability in a specific public school district (TUSD) during a a specific period of time (for the last three school years) under a specific set of leaders (Sanchez, Grijalva, Foster, and Juarez). Fortunately, in a democratically controlled school system, every time a governing board election rolls around, the electorate is offered another opportunity to solve whatever problems have developed with leadership.
If they lie about enrollment numbers are they receiving money for fraudulent reports? I would call that no accountability. Should we hope it gets better from there? How many have been caught already stealing food from the government feeding programs?
Lack of accountability causes this.
If you want to test my theory Google “public school fraud” and just take a look at what comes up. Fake classes to increase enrollment numbers. Financial fraud, test cheating, providing answers or grade fixing to appear to be delivering improved results. Page after page from city to city.
Could it be that majority politicians’ hate for all things public, including public education as demonstrated by excessive control and lack of funding, has anything to do with it?
Ratt:
Why do you bother?
Everyone with an ounce of common sense has already figured out that the facts which you reference are false and that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Go away…pleeeeze!
The public’s apathy has a lot to do with it. People seem to have forgotten what “democracy” means and who is ultimately responsible when public institutions are allowed to go off the rails. Our founders and policy makers during the past 200+ years who understood what our founders were trying to achieve built mechanisms into our institutions that allow for the citizenry to solve leadership problems and get rid of people who abuse their power. But the effective use of these mechanisms depends on people paying attention to what’s going on, engaging in advocacy and public commentary when needed, and campaigning in support of the vote being used the way it should be used, instead of in blind support of political machines.
Why is TUSD what it is? Because the district has constituents who are too busy scrambling to make ends meet, apathetic because their education never offered them real opportunities to be anything else, and / or afraid to speak up and say the emperor has no clothes. TUSD is also what it is because of people like David Safier, a clever and obedient servant of the local machine. He likes the phrase “caveat emptor” (“buyer beware”) and that is exactly the attitude that readers should take to the sort propaganda he purveys: it serves mainly to spin, excuse, mislead and conceal rather than to reveal what voters need to know to use their votes wisely.
And that is exactly what lazy voters and non voters want. Somebody that promises hope and change, so they can take that literally to mean they do not have to check back and see what you are doing to/for our children.
I took my kids out of TUSD and won’t be back.
I removed my kids from TUSD 9 years ago as soon as Tanque Verde started open enrollment. After enduring 3 years of school closure threats I had had enough. I love the small classes and wonderful teachers and the kids all know each other. They are getting a first rate personal education. Nothing would make me return to TUSD.
This is interesting. TUSD lost more teachers in 2015-16 than it lost students. In the 3 years under Dr. Sanchez, TUSD has lost about 1200 teachers out of 2500 teachers. There have been over twice as many resignations as retirements. TUSD is losing teachers faster than it can hire them.
Lillian Fox
Vail is opening 3 schools this year, and has been averaging 2-4 new schools per year.