School choice bills, left-wing ideological takeovers of school districts, hangovers from yearlong COVID lockdowns, and the baby bust all will have the same effect: reducing public school enrollment across the country for many years to come.
Enrollment fell mightily in the school years ending in 2021 and 2022, thanks to the long bouts of “remote schooling” disastrously imposed on families. Many parents left public schools in the summer of 2020 because they knew remote schooling was vastly inferior to all other options. This was a boon for private schools, and it also drove a massive spike in homeschooling.
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Some of this was temporary. Some parents are returning to public school this year with the threat of remote schooling nearly gone.
But there is lingering anger from parents who, over time, realized the school closures had nothing to do with children’s safety and everything to do with teachers union politics. If a school’s faculty and its leadership make it clear they don’t want to show up to work and that they see your children as “vectors,” then you might be eager to find alternatives.
Iowa, Utah, Arkansas, and Florida have all recently passed laws providing universal school choice. That is, parents who want to opt out of public schools receive a check to cover some of the cost of private school. In places with subpar public schools, this will rescue many children from poor education and drive down public school enrollment further.
Many school boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers unions are imposing a left-wing ideological agenda on their schools, teaching harmful transgender ideology and deliberately trying to peel children away from their parents' moral instruction. That will also continue to drive parents out of public schools.
Finally, there is the baby bust. America has fewer children today than it did 10 years ago. Every year, basically, since 2008, the number of babies born has fallen. Nationwide, the number of 6-year-olds will fall every year for the next six years at least.
California, which doesn’t have school choice but which did force millions of children into a year of remote schooling, is an instructive case study. “Enrollment at California public schools has continued to decline this academic year, without any recovery from the steep drops seen during the pandemic,” the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. “Enrollment for the 2022-23 school year fell 0.69% — representing 40,000 students — from the previous year, bringing the total to 5,852,544, according to newly released state data. This year’s percentage decline is higher than those of each of the five years prior to the pandemic.”
The consequences include school closures, education professor Thomas Dee said. "Past experience tells us that these are challenges that just rend the fabric of communities because parents don’t want to lose their neighborhood schools," Dee said. “The disruption to education when a child changes schools can be consequential. As it often plays out, many of our most vulnerable learners are often asked to switch schools — and maybe not directed toward one of our higher-performing schools.”
For the last 30 years, parents and politicians have fretted about overcrowded schools. For the foreseeable future, the problem will be schools emptying and shutting down.