Diversity Rising

Enrollment in America’s public schools is breaking records with an all-time high of nearly 50 million students, but the real headline is that our nation’s student body is more diverse than ever before.

The Condition of Education 2008, a Congressionally-mandated report released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), found that, overall, about 43 percent of students are minorities, and about 20 percent of students are Hispanic, up from 11 percent in the late 1980s.

The authors of the report claim that most minority students tend to be clustered in high-poverty schools, but they obviously haven’t looked at schools in middle-class, suburban neighborhoods lately or they’d have discovered a growing tapestry of cultures, where students from all sorts of backgrounds are helping each other learn.

For example, in Fairfax County, a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, the number of Hispanic students jumped to 17 percent from just 4 percent 20 years ago. One of those schools that saw that jump is Annandale High School, where Eileen Kruger’s kids graduated.

Kruger is the author of Debunking the Middle-Class Myth: Why Diverse Schools are Good for All Kids. When her kids were exposed to classmates from different cultures and backgrounds -- Annandale’s students come from 85 countries and speak 40 languages -- Kruger took note of how it enriched their education and increased their understanding and tolerance of different people.

Now a national advocate of diverse schools in all communities, Kruger says that “learning comes alive when wisdom is shared not only by competent teachers and textbooks, but also by fellow students with life experiences and cultures that illuminate whole new worlds."

It looks like Kruger is onto something. The Condition of Education report also found that more students of all races are enrolling in college, and more bachelor’s degrees have been awarded than ever before.