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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (103620)	2/9/2009 1:24:29 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 542008

I agree with the way you assess the article. In fact, it was muddled in many ways, lacking a clear POV I thought. My position on the building of new public schools, however, is just a macro view. Nationwide public school enrollments are dropping because of declining birth rates, growing religious and other private schools, and increasing home schooling. But obviously there are regional differences as well as neighborhood differences. If you google "declining school enrollments" though, you'll see article after article citing public school closings and/or consolidations in almost every region of the country. I'm not opposed to increased spending on education....just musing my hopes that our illustrious public servants will spend the hour or so it took me to research the changing demographics. Krugman's comment was to the 'building of schools'. As to the enrollment drop being just cyclical, that's possible I guess. But I don't see the ingredients for an increasing birth rate in the US. School enrollments are even declining in Utah, home of the country's most prolific breeders. :) Smaller family sizes are the trend across the country. It started in the 70s, reversed a little with immigration, but seems to be shifting back. I expect the US replacement rate to fall below the current 2.1 going forward.