Chicago public school officials announced last Friday that enrollment over the past year had continued a nearly two-decade downward trend, declining by about 10,000 students. Roughly 371,000 students now attend the city’s schools, a 15 percent drop since 2002.

Cities hit harder by economic change and smaller cities have higher percentage changes: The public schools in Manchester, New Hampshire, suffered a 16 percent enrollment decline over a 10-year period, ending in 2014; enrollment went down 21 percent in Hartford, Connecticut, over a decade, ending in 2016.

The declining numbers point to — but aren’t a primary cause of — what it means to be poor in the U.S. today. Emily Badger of CityLab reports that between 2000 and 2011, the population living in poverty in cities rose by 29 percent, while the population living in poverty in the suburbs of metropolitan areas across the country rose by 64 percent. More poor people live in suburbs (16.4 million) than in cities (13.4 million).

Read the full article by David Cantor about school districts on The 74