Schools Mostly Nonwhite for 1st Time, Honig Says
For the first time, a majority of California public school students are nonwhite this fall, state schools chief Bill Honig said today.
“We’re going to have to work with the most diverse group of youngsters we’ve ever seen,” Honig said at a Capitol news conference on the first day of school for many of the state’s 4.6 million pupils.
He said projected fall enrollment is 49.2% white, 30.7% Latino, 9% black, 7.6% Asian, 2.2% Filipino, 0.8% American Indian and 0.5% Pacific islander.
(In 1987, the Los Angeles Unified School district enrollment was 83% nonwhite.)
Last year, the statewide percentage of white students among 4.4 million students was 50.96%, while Latinos were 29.56%, blacks 9.25%, Asians 6.98%, Filipinos 2.03%, American Indians 0.74% and Pacific islanders 0.49%.
By contrast, in 1966 there were 4.6 million students, but 75.1% were white, 13.6% Latino, 8.2% black and 2.2% Asian.
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