Socioeconomic variables which discriminate between increasing and decreasing enrollment among Tennessee public school districts

The basic purpose of this investigation was to identify socioeconomic variables which discriminated between Tennessee public school districts which experienced enrollment increases or enrollment decreases from 1970 to 1978. An ancilliary purpose of the study was focused on determining the distribution of enrollment growth or decline and the types of districts or regional areas most affected by the enrollment changes.

Public school districts as listed by the Tennessee State Department of Education in 1970 and 1977 were compared and adjustments were made for any discrepancies between the two lists. A total of l46 public school districts were subjected to analysis in the study. Data for each district were obtained by apportioning known county data to any district with missing data within that county.

Enrollment changes were calculated and districts were divided into one of three categories: (l) those districts which experienced enrollment increases, (2) those districts which experienced enrollment decreases, and (3) those districts which experienced no enrollment change. A stepwise discriminant analysis was applied to district data in the first two groups. Sixteen variables were evaluated for their combined discriminatory power; three were selected and formed a function that discriminated between districts with increased or decreased enrollments, placing approximately 73 percent of the districts in the .correct group and misclassifying 27 percent of the districts. Variables selected by the analysis to form a discriminant function were: (1) percent of population change, (2) pupil-teacher ratio, and (3) assessed property valuation. The discriminant function placed in Group 1 those districts with a net emigration, high pupil-teacher ratio, and low assessed property valuation.

Analyses of variances showed that independent districts generally experienced negative percents of enrollment change and lost a greater percent of students than suburban districts lost. All suburban districts surrounding Davidson-Metro experienced enrollment increases, while all districts surrounding Memphis experienced enrollment decreases. Consolidation accounted for extreme percents of enrollment change in rural districts. Enrollment changes in Tennessee from 1970 to 1978 were typical of other states' enrollment trends during that time.

The socioeconomic variables that discriminated between increasing and decreasing enrollments among Tennessee public school districts were frequently mentioned in the literature. However, more research designed to measure and report the discriminatory power of those socioeconomic variables would provide help to educational policy makers as they administer finances to public school districts in states that experience enrollment declines.