Chapter 4

Abstract

Educational levels in the population have grown enormously during the twentieth century, primarily through a process of cohort succession. Educational growth has been concentrated through the spread of grade and high school education, and not through increases in rates of progression from high school to college. Educational growth results from improvements in family socioeconomic standing, shifts in economic incentives, legislative changes facilitating school attendance, and changes in the organization of schools. School enrollment levels since World War II have been heavily influenced by the postwar baby boom and the fertility decline in the 1960s and 1970s. College enrollments will fall significantly in the next few years, but this may be mitigated by increases in the favorability of family circumstances for educational attainment. Socioeconomic differences in educational attainment have been approximately constant through the twentieth century, whereas race differentials in schooling have significantly converged. Performances on standardized aptitude and achievement tests for high school students have declined dramatically since the mid-1960s, a trend due partly to changes in schools' curricula. Elementary schools have consolidated throughout the twentieth century, while secondary schools have been approximately constant in number and institutions of higher education have proliferated.