Federal civil rights data shows suspension, enrollment shifts in U.S. schools

The Trump administration published the latest Civil Rights Data Collection on Aug. 31, according to NPR. The federal survey covers the 2023-24 school year and was released six months later than promised, NPR reported. It was published without the usual "First Look Report," which NPR describes as a document that makes the information easier for the public to understand; that report is now available.

The data covers about 49.7 million public school students in more than 97,000 public schools, according to NPR. Data on nonbinary students was collected under the Biden administration, but the Trump administration chose to withhold it from the public release, NPR reported.

Preschool enrollment rose 12% from the 2021-22 school year to 1.5 million children, NPR reported, though it remained slightly lower than in 2019. Maithreyi Gopalan of the University of Oregon, who helps lead the research and policy group AdvancED Equity, said, "It's part recovery, part expansion." Gopalan said recovery refers to preschool numbers rising from a pandemic low, and expansion refers to some states investing more in early childhood education. K-12 enrollment fell almost 1% compared with 2021-22, which Gopalan said is consistent with other data and could relate to declining birthrates and increases in private school and homeschooled students in some states.

Suspensions rose across the board, according to NPR: 2.5 million students received one or more out-of-school suspensions and 2.3 million faced in-school suspensions in 2023-24. That is up by about 100,000 students in each category compared with the last report from 2021-22. Black students were more likely to be suspended than students of other races, according to the data.

The number of students with disabilities grew, and the teacher workforce was far less diverse than the student population, NPR reported. Gopalan and Dan Losen of the National Center for Youth Law independently analyzed the data and shared some of what they learned with NPR. According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, state-funded pre-K enrollment rose nearly 15% between 2021-22 and 2023-24. NPR reported that California, in its second year of expanding its universal transitional kindergarten program for 4-year-olds, enrolled nearly 36,000 more children in preschool or transitional kindergarten than the year before, and that Colorado and New Mexico are among other states rapidly expanding preschool access.