A Shrinking Pie to Hit Education Minnesota

As they say, demography is destiny, and right about now the nation’s (and Minnesota’s) destiny is not looking so good.  I’ve written about this topic before, and now I have more recent data to work with and can draw more definitive conclusions.

Here are the raw numbers for the past decade.

U.S. Births By Year
Year	U.S.	Minnesota
2013	3,957,577	69,160
2012	3,952,841	68,772
2011	3,953,593	68,411
2010	3,999,386	68,605
2009	4,130,665	70,648
2008	4,247,694	72,421
2007	4,316,233	73,745
2006	4,265,555	73,675
2005	4,138,349	70,920
2004	4,112,042	70,614
2003	4,089,950	70,053
Source:  CDC

As I wrote back in March,

A decade ago, we were seeing slow, if unspectacular, growth.  When the last economic boom was at its peak (2006-2008), we saw something of a mini baby boom.  When the recession hit in 2008, the number of births fell, and has not recovered.  

Keep in mind, these effects are cumulative.  So, in Minnesota, since the 2007 peak, we are now “missing” 24,453 children in the last six years. 

Think of a K-5 elementary school.  To make the math easy, assume 25 students per teacher, we now need 978 fewer elementary school teachers than we would have planned for, using the higher birth rates of a few years ago.

Those changes, of course, won’t be spread evenly across the state.  Some districts will allow class sizes to shrink.  Some districts will continue to grow, while others may face the need to close entire schools.

Even as middle schools will be coping with the recent mini baby boom, suddenly in 2015, schools across the state will find they are “missing” 2,000 kindergarteners from the year before.

Judging by the national numbers, which mirror Minnesota’s, we are unlikely to avoid shrinking schools with domestic migrants.  (Foreign immigration would be a different matter)

The ripple effects continue.  State education funding depends on per pupil formulas.  Fewer pupils means less money.  Fewer pupils translates, eventually, into fewer dues paying union member teachers.

As it stands, the state teachers’ union—Education Minnesota--ranks as the state’s largest campaign donor, giving almost exclusively to Democrats.  As school enrollments begin to shrink across the state, look for the politics of education to get even more bitter.

The economics of teachers’ pensions relies on a growing number of dues-paying-members to support the growing number of retirees.  If the ranks of active teachers actually shrink, the finances turn upside down. 

Look for Education Minnesota to push ever-shrinking class sizes and ever-growing pay to make up the difference.