Unwillingness to Finance Schools Feared : Analysts see reluctance to pay taxes for classrooms increasing as the birthrate declines and the population gets older.

The nation’s public schools are about to be confronted by a new challenge in the 1990s: Demographic shifts are threatening to erode the political support for spending on education.

Some analysts fear that the declining birthrate, the increase in the elderly population and the continued splintering of the American family are working together to increase the share of Americans who are reluctant to spend tax money on American schools.

These changes may not only lead voters to oppose spending for local school projects but may also shape public policy on larger national education issues, such as whether to authorize the use of public funds on private and parochial schools.

“This may be the most important unexamined problem facing education,” said Myron Lieberman, an educational consultant and author in Washington, D.C.

BACKGROUND: The demographic shift has been under way for some time. U.S. Census Bureau figures show that 34.6% of American families had school-age children in 1990, down from 45.3% in 1970.

And the share of Americans over the age of 65, which was 11.3% in 1980, is expected to edge up to 13.1% by the year 2000.

Although the elderly do not vote differently from younger people on most issues, author Christine L. Day notes in her book, “What Older Americans Think,” they are more likely to favor spending for health insurance and less likely to favor spending for schools.

Some analysts believe such attitudes will intensify as Americans live longer, retire earlier and try harder to conserve their savings in their retirement years.

As President Bush has pointed out, Americans have been generous on the education issue in the last decade. Per-student spending, after inflation, has increased by about one-third.

But that may not reflect a greater willingness by taxpayers to spend more on schools. Analysts point out that the increase has occurred just as the major source of school revenues has shifted--from property taxes to state sales taxes, whose bite is less visible to taxpayers.

As a result, Americans are doling out more for school spending, but few are aware of it. “It’s easy to conceal the size of the spending when it comes out of this big pot of sales tax money,” Lieberman said.

When proposals for increased school spending have been put to a direct vote--on local school bond issues--the results have been increasingly negative.

In the early 1960s, when the huge baby-boom generation was in school, about two-thirds of bond issues were approved, according to an article in American Demographer magazine by UC Irvine demographers Kenneth Chew and Richard McCleary. By the 1980s, the approvals had slumped to less than half.

OUTLOOK: Chester Finn, a Vanderbilt University education professor and informal adviser to U.S. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander, said that the demographic shift may have unfortunate consequences beyond financial issues. The changes may make it “more difficult to mobilize people who don’t feel they have a direct stake,” he said. “We haven’t done very well mobilizing them as it is.”

But there are reasons to think that the worst scenarios may not come to pass.

It is not clear that the U.S. birthrate will continue to remain low. Some demographers say that child-bearing by the baby-boom generation--the baby-boom “echo”--could lift the U.S. birthrate to 2.7 births per woman in the 1990s.

And some educators see signs that more Americans without children are becoming convinced that the nation’s economy--and their personal well-being--depend on how well the schools do their job.

A poll conducted last summer by Gallup for Phi Delta Kappa, a fraternity of educators, found that 88% of the respondents thought that having the best educational system was “very important”--more than thought it very important for the United States to have the strongest military force or the most efficient industrial production system.

Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the public schools have struggled with the developing demographic problem since the 1970s “and now we’re continuing to struggle with it . . . . We certainly don’t expect the schools to again have the tremendous power they had in the 1950s and 1960s.”

But Shanker said he is encouraged by the fact that American business has increasingly recognized that U.S. corporations will not be able to compete in a global market unless their schools are as good as those of other countries. “That’s an important change,” he said.

Bleak Future for Education Spending?

The changing makeup of American households over the last two decades does not bode well for increased spending on education, some analysts fear, U.S. Census Bureau figures show that the proportion of homes with school-age children has declined markedly over the period, while the share of Americans over age 65 has edged up. Here are the figures: 1970 Proportion of families with school-age children: 45.3% Proportion of families without school-age children: 35.9% Proportion of other households with no children: 18.8% 1980 Proportion of families with school-age children: 38.4% Proportion of families without school-age children: 35.3% Proportion of other households with no children: 26.2% 1990 Proportion of families with school-age children: 34.6% Proportion of families without school-age children: 36.3% Proportion of other households with no children: 29.2% Source: U.S. Census Bureau