Back to school: By the numbers

Wallet feeling light these days?

Those bucks you dumped on your teenager's hot new jeans and those to-die-for shoes helped support America's $6 billion annual back-to-school shopping industry.

That's the money spent a year ago at the nation's some 23,000 family clothing stores, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The big bucks raked in this time of year are rivaled only by the October-December holiday shopping season.

Bookstores also are cashing in on back-to-school times, raking in $2 billion this same time last year. Those sales are rivaled only by December and January receipts.

Those and dozens of other statistics were issued by the Census Bureau to mark some 54.6 million students' return to the nation's elementary, middle and high schools.

Some numbers reveal the nation's growth and diversity. Others, family and state spending. And a couple even narrow in on lunchtime. For more facts and figures, visit www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-04.html.

• The nation's schools are getting more and more students each year. This fall, they'll educate 3.3 million more than seen in 1970, when the bulk of baby boomers were in school.

Today's students' classrooms also look — and sound — a lot different than those of years past.

Forty percent of today's American students are ethnic minorities, compared to 21 percent in 1970.

Twenty-two percent also have foreign-born parents, and 6 percent were foreign-born themselves.

Just under 10 million — or nearly one in five school-age children — speak a language other than English at home. Spanish is by far the most common, spoken by 7 million.

National trends are echoed in Utah.

Here, public school enrollments have leaped from 317,332 in 1977 to 486,938 in 2003, State Office of Education numbers show.

In 1990, 25,400 school-age children spoke languages other than English; the number has doubled to about 50,000, the 2003 Census reports.

• Students returning to school are expected be greeted by 6.5 million teachers, who earn an average $45,900 a year, the Census reports.

Utah is home to 21,600 teachers, who earn less than those in many other states, the 2003 Census shows. The average teacher salary here was $38,300.