It's Getting Worse

In the 2020-21 school year, 145 elementary/middle/secondary schools in the United States experienced a school shooting—a record high. Not only that, but 2020-21 was the first year in which there were more school shootings at elementary schools (59) than at high schools (57), according to an analysis of the K-12 School Shooting Database by the National Center for Education Statistics. 

Number of public or private elementary-secondary schools with shootings, 2015-16 to 2020-21

2020-21: 145 

2019-20: 114

2018-19: 113

2017-18:   89

2016-17:   47

2015-16:   38

Forty-six people died from school shootings in 2020-21, below the record high of 52 fatalities from school shootings in 2017-18—the year of the shooting at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The fatality data for 2021-22 have yet to be released.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Condition of Education, Violent Deaths at School and Away from School and School Shootings and Digest of Education Statistics, Table 228.12

What Parents Think about School Efforts to Limit Covid

The battle lines are drawn as parents face off across the country over Covid mitigation measures. Schools are in the crosshairs.

Almost half of parents with children aged 12 to 17 (48 percent) say their child has received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, according to the KFF Covid-19 Vaccine Monitor fielded September 13-22. Almost as many parents (40 percent) say they will wait and see on the vaccine, or they will have their child vaccinated only if required, or they definitely will not get their child vaccinated. 

Among parents of 5-to-11-year-olds, only 34 percent say they will get their child vaccinated as soon as the vaccine is authorized for the age group. Almost as many—32 percent—say they will wait and see. Another 31 percent say they will have their child vaccinated only if required, or they definitely will not get their child vaccinated. 

In the midst of these divisions, the nation's schools are struggling to create a safe physical environment for the education of the nation's 53 million school-aged children. It is a daunting task. Not only do parents disagree about the need for vaccinations but also about the need for masks...

Parents with children in K-12 schools

58% think all students and staff should be required to wear masks

35% think no one should be required to wear masks

4% think only unvaccinated students and staff should be required to wear masks

Among vaccinated parents, 73 percent think schools should require all students and staff to wear masks. Among unvaccinated parents, 63 percent think no one should be required to wear masks. What are the schools doing about masks? The 69 percent majority of parents say their child's school requires all students and staff to wear masks. Another 28 percent of parents say their child's school does not have any mask requirements. 

Despite the deep divisions among parents, fully 66 percent think their child's school is doing "about the right amount" to limit the spread of Covid. Twenty-one percent say their child's school is not doing enough, and 11 percent say their child's school is doing too much. 

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation, KFF Covid-19 Vaccine Monitor: Vaccination Trends among Children and Covid-19 in Schools

Most Favor Mask, Vaccine Mandates for Schools

The 58 percent majority of the American public somewhat/strongly favors mask mandates for students attending K-12 schools, according to an AP-NORC survey. An almost identical 59 percent support a mask mandate for teachers working in those schools. But there are deep partisan divides on this issue, which is playing out in school districts across the country...

Percent who somewhat/strongly favor mask mandates for students in K-12 schools

Total adults: 58%

Democrats: 83%

Republicans: 31%

Vaccinated: 69%

Not vaccinated: 29%

Support for a Covid vaccine mandate is almost as popular as a mask mandate, with 55 percent of adults somewhat/strongly in favor of requiring students aged 12 or older to be vaccinated to attend school in person. Fifty-nine percent of Americans support a vaccine mandate for teachers. Among Democrats, 77 percent favor a vaccine mandate for students and 81 percent for teachers. Among Republicans, the figures are 34 and 38 percent, respectively.

Source: AP-NORC, Support for Mask and Vaccine Mandates in Schools

What Parents Want

Only 36 percent of parents want full-time in-person schooling to resume in the upcoming school year, according to a Gallup survey. As school start dates approach and Covid-19 infections surge, the percentage of parents who support full-time in-person instruction has dropped precipitously since June, when the 56 percent majority of parents supported traditional instruction.

Parents' preferences for the resumption of school (July 13-27)
Full-time in person school: 36%
Part-time in-person/part-time remote: 36%
Full-time remote instruction: 28%

Behind the 20 percentage-point drop in support of full-time in-person instruction are parents' growing fears that their children will become infected with Covid-19. Between June and July, the percentage of parents who are somewhat/very worried about their child becoming infected climbed from 46 to 64 percent. This growing fear explains the 21 percentage-point increase in parents' preference for full-time remote instruction, which rose from just 7 percent in June to the 28 percent of July. There was almost no change in the percentage of parents who favor a mix of in-person and remote schooling.

Republicans are far less concerned than Democrats about their children going back to school. Among parents who are Democrats, only 13 percent favor full-time in-person schooling. Among parents who are Republicans, 68 percent favor traditional instruction.

Source: Gallup, Fewer U.S. Parents Want Full-Time In-Person Fall Schooling

The Big Experiment in Remote Learning

One-fifth of the nation's households are taking part in a massive experiment in remote learning. Among the 129 million households in the United States, 26 million are families with children aged 6 to 17—children whose school buildings are now closed due to the coronavirus pandemic and who are receiving their lessons at home. Among householders aged 35 to 44, the majority are supervising children who are learning remotely.

Percent of households with children aged 6 to 17 by age of householder
Total households: 20.4%
Under age 25: 3.6%
Aged 25 to 29: 14.9%
Aged 30 to 34: 31.3%
Aged 35 to 39: 50.2%
Aged 40 to 44: 55.1%
Aged 45 to 49: 45.8%
Aged 50 to 54: 26.6%
Aged 55 to 64: 6.7%
Aged 65-plus: 1.0%

Source: Demo Memo analysis of the Census Bureau's America's Families and Living Arrangements: 2019

Non-Hispanic White Share of Public School Students by Urbanicity

Non-Hispanic whites are a minority of the nation's public school students, accounting for 48.9 percent of elementary and secondary students in 2015, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But the share of non-Hispanic whites varies greatly by urbanicity...

Non-Hispanic white share of public elementary and secondary school students
20.2% in large cities (city population of 250,000 or more)
32.6% in mid-sized cities (city population of 100,000 to 250,000)
46.0% in small cities (city population below 100,000)
47.8% in large suburbs (suburb of city with 250,000 or more population)
59.9% in mid-sized suburbs (suburb of city with population of 100,000 to 250,000)
63.6% in small suburbs (suburb of city with population below 100,000)
67.1% in fringe towns (urban cluster 10 miles or less from an urbanized area)
64.8% in distant towns (urban cluster 10 to 35 miles from an urbanized area)
58.3% in remote towns (urban cluster 35-plus miles from an urbanized area)
65.9% in fringe rural areas (not in an urban cluster, less than 5 miles from an urbanized area)
79.3% in distant rural areas (not in an urban cluster, 5 to 25 miles from an urbanized area)
73.1% in remote rural areas (not in an urban cluster, 25-plus miles from an urbanized area)

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, School Choice in the United States, 2019

Most Kids Get to School by Private Vehicle

Despite the ubiquitous yellow school buses driving the roads most months of the year, the 54 percent majority of the nation's children are driven to school in a private vehicle, according to the Federal Highway Administration's National Household Transportation Survey. A smaller 33 percent ride a school bus. Just 10 percent walk or bike to school.

The way children aged 5 to 17 get to school has not changed much in the past two decades, reports the Federal Highway Administration. Only 10 percent of children walk or bike to school because the schools most children attend are too far from their home. Among children who live within a half mile of school, most walk or bike to get there.

Percent of 5-to-17-year-olds who walk/bike to school by distance from home to school
81% of those who live less than 0.25 miles from school
56.1% of those who live from 0.25 and 0.50 miles from school
24.8% of those who live from 0.50 to 1 mile from school
  7.0% of those who live from 1 to 2 miles from school
  0.9% of those who live 2 or more miles from school

Source: Federal Highway Administration, 2017 National Household Travel Survey, Children's Travel to School

Public School Students in 2019

Non-Hispanic Whites will account for 47 percent of the nation's public school students this fall, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The 53 percent majority of students in grades K through 12 will be Hispanic, Black, Asian, or another minority. This is a big shift since 2000, when 61 percent of public school students were non-Hispanic White. The share fell below 50 percent in 2014.

Public school students in grades K–12 by race and Hispanic origin, 2019
47.1% are non-Hispanic White alone
27.8% are Hispanic
15.3% are non-Hispanic Black alone
  5.7% are non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander alone
  3.1% are non-Hispanic two or more races
  1.0% are non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native alone

The non-Hispanic White share of public school students will fall a bit more in the next few years. In 2027, non-Hispanic Whites will account for 45 percent of students, according to NCES projections.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Projections of Education Statistics to 2027

Weapons in Schools

School safety is a big concern, and a recent National Center for Education Statistics report shows why. In the 2017–18 school year, public schools reported 3,600 incidents in which a firearm or explosive device was brought into a school (3 percent of schools reported this type of incident) and 69,100 incidents in which a knife or sharp object was brought into a school (reported by 38 percent).

These reports are just the tip of the iceberg, judging from the results of the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. This biennial survey of students in 9th through 12th grade was developed to monitor risky teen behaviors. According to the 2017 survey, 3.8 percent of students in 9th through 12th grade said they had carried a weapon (such as a gun, knife, club, etc.) onto school property in the past month. With 16.7 million high school students in the nation, this means more than 600,000 had brought a weapon to school in the past month. Among boys, 5.6 percent had done so. Boys in 11th and 12th grade were most likely to have brought a weapon to school—7.1 and 7.0 percent, respectively.

Overall, 6.0 percent of high school students say they were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property in the past year. Among boys, 7.8 percent had been threatened with a weapon. Boys in 9th grade were most likely to report this kind of experience, at 8.8 percent. 

Source: CDC, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, Youth Online High School Results

Homicides at the Nation's Schools

Hundreds of children have been murdered while at school over the past few decades, according to a grim study by the CDC. Nearly 400 children (393) were murdered in single-death incidents while at school from 1994 to 2016. Another 121 children were murdered in multiple-death incidents from 1994 to 2018. There are differences in these two types of crimes, according to the study findings...

Sex of victims and perpetrators: The victims in single-death incidents were mostly male (77 percent), while the victims in multiple-death incidents were evenly split between males and females. Males were the great majority of perpetrators in both types of incidents, with the proportion reaching as high as 98 percent in multiple-death incidents.

Race of victims: Blacks were a much larger share of victims in single-death (53 percent) than multiple-death incidents (12 percent). Non-Hispanic Whites were a much larger share of victims in multiple-death incidents (69 percent) than single-death incidents (23 percent).

Age of victims: Fully 78 percent of victims in single-death incidents were aged 15 to 18, another 19 percent were aged 10 to 14, and 3 percent were aged 5 to 9. In multiple-death incidents, a smaller 54 percent of victims were in the 15-to-18 age group, 23 percent were aged 10 to 14, and 23 percent were aged 5 to 9.

Cause of death: Firearms were the cause of death in 63 percent of single-death incidents. Stabbing accounted for another 24 percent. In multiple-death incidents, fully 95 percent of deaths were caused by firearms.

Source: CDC, Characteristics of School-Associated Youth Homicides—United States, 1994–2018

Most Parents Are Very Satisfied with Child's School

Among the parents of the nation's school children in kindergarten through 12th grade, fully 60 percent are "very satisfied" with their child's school, according to a National Center for Education Statistics survey. The percentage of parents who are very satisfied declines as children grow older, from 69 percent of parents with children in kindergarten through 2nd grade to a smaller 54 percent of those with children in 9th through 12th grade. Here are the percentages of parents who are very satisfied with their child's school by type of school...

Percent of parents who are very satisfied with child's school by type of school
Public, assigned: 57%
Public, chosen: 65%
Private, religious: 78%
Private, nonreligious: 84%

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education: Results from the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2016