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Consultant tells TUSD board K–12 enrollment decline driven by lower birth rates, vouchers and charter growth
Summary
A Center for Applied Economics presentation to the Tucson Unified School District board warned the school‑age population is flat in Arizona and birth rates have declined sharply since 2006; consultants said vouchers and charter expansion mean districts are competing for a shrinking pool of students.
A consultant from the University of Arizona’s Center for Applied Economics delivered a data‑heavy briefing to the Tucson Unified School District governing board on demographic trends driving K–12 enrollment statewide and in Pima County, including a steep decline in birth rates and growing competition from charter schools and school‑choice programs.
Rick Brammer told the board that the national rate of people under age 18 has flattened and the number of children in the United States has not increased since about 2015. "When enrollment has been doing what it's doing, your first instinct is to kind of take it personally somehow. And I want to assure you that's really not what's going on," Brammer said, framing the trends as structural rather than unique to any single district.
Key points presented to the…
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