The percentage of white and Black students enrolled in public K-12 schools has gone down over the last 10 years, but the Hispanic share grew, according to new federal data, indicating a growing population of students of color in U.S. schools. Read more»

Arizona had five of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. last year while Phoenix continued to add residents, bucking the trend of major cities that lost population during the pandemic, according to the Census Bureau. Read more»

The number of Americans who identified as more than one race nearly doubled to 13.5 million people between 2010 and 2020, and did double or more in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Read more»

The 2020 census missed nearly 1 of every 17 Native Americans who live on reservations, an undercount that could lead to insufficient federal funding for essential health, nutrition, and social programs in remote communities with high poverty rates. Read more»

In a sign of how dire drought conditions have become in the American West, the Bureau of Reclamation will keep water in Lake Powell and add more water from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir upstream to stave off dropping water levels. Read more»

Indigenous people living on tribal land were the group most likely to be undercounted in the 2020 Census, a significant impact because the data is used in determining federal, state, and local resource allocation, funding distributions, and policy decisions. Read more»

Many cities and states say the 2020 census wildly underestimated their residents, costing them significant money for the social services and infrastructure their areas need - and while the Census Bureau has created programs to fix the errors, many say they are not sufficient. Read more»

Maricopa County added more new residents than any county in the nation last year, continuing a trend that local officials call a credit to the region’s opportunities and affordability, and all but four counties – Apache, Coconino, Greenlee and La Paz – saw population increases last year. Read more»

In 2020, as in past years, the U.S. Census Bureau didn’t get a completely accurate count, according to the bureau’s own reporting - here's why, and how, the census misses people, and how it’s possible to assess who wasn’t counted. Read more»

A new court ruling means Arizona remains where it's always been — choosing to remain at the bottom of the national ladder in school funding. The untenable remains permanent, and everyone is to blame. Read more»

A perfect storm of pandemic-induced delays in the census, unintended consequences from multiple years’ worth of legislation and an unconventional legal interpretation by the secretary of state created a problem that triggered a change to the law that has enraged the GOP’s activist base. Read more»

The number of Arizonans fearing eviction has grown sharply since a pandemic moratorium on evictions ended in September, with advocates and landlords both saying rental assistance from the federal government has not reached renters fast enough. Read more»

When the next Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission convenes in 2031, it might be drawing 90 single-member House districts instead of 30 districts with two representatives apiece, at least if Sen. J.D. Mesnard has any say over it. Read more»

The 2020 Census - particularly challenging with the COVID-19 pandemic and a heated political climate - may have missed more than 1.6 million Americans, about 48,000 of them in Arizona, with the undercount disproportionately falling on minority groups. Read more»

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission’s draft maps for both the state’s 30 legislative districts and nine congressional districts — which will be used for the next decade — weaken the influence that Native American voters will have on who gets elected. Read more»