The Great Dropout: Why 1.4 Million Children Left Public School in 2020 and Where They Went

By Lawrence Wilson

Epoch Times

Over a million children left public schools in 2020, a migration that came on the heels of school lockdowns and masking requirements, and was hastened by increased parental dissatisfaction with K-12 education.

Enrollment in U.S. public schools declined by 1.4 million students between fall 2019 and fall 2020, dipping to 49.4 million, a loss of nearly 3 percent, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

The decline may be closer to 2 million, according to a report by Education Next showing that traditional public school enrollment as a percentage of all school enrollment declined sharply between 2020 and 2022.

Enrollment in traditional public schools fell from 81 to 76.5 percent of total enrollment during that period, while enrollment in public charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling grew by a combined 4.5 percent.

Those numbers indicate that nearly 2 million students left traditional public schools for other educational options over the previous three years.

In many cases, the disruption in learning due to COVID-19 policies was the catalyst many parents needed to make the jump away from public schools to charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling.

Based on recent enrollment figures and the comfort many parents express with their decision to opt out of public schools, it appears the missing millions will not return.

Dissatisfaction With Learning

Parent satisfaction with K-12 education plunged between 2019 and 2022, according to GALLUP. Prior to the onset of COVID-19, 51 percent of parents said they were either completely or somewhat satisfied with their child’s education. Three years later, that satisfaction level was 42 percent, the lowest in over 20 years.

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Nearly a quarter of Americans, 23 percent, said they were completely dissatisfied with their child’s education.

Parent interviews conducted by The Epoch Times revealed that distance learning during school lockdowns provided a glimpse into the classroom that made parents question their school’s ability to educate their children.

“For a while, [our kids] were getting homework assigned to them by their teachers … but there was no teaching going on,” Matt Mohler of Tallahassee, Florida, said. He moved his children from a highly public school to a classical charter school in the fall of 2020.

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Shireen Qudosi of Orange County, California, took her autistic son out of public school in October 2020. “There wasn’t even a functioning curriculum in place, which access into the classroom through remote learning confirmed.”

Mask and Vaccine Requirements

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Parents demonstrate at a Long Island Loud Majority protest against state-mandated masks for schoolchildren on Jan. 26, 2022, at the Suffolk County government offices. (Dave Paone/The Epoch Times)

Parents don’t want their children exposed to the “radical indoctrination that the public schools are doing,” J. Allen Weston, Executive Director of the American Home School Association, told The Epoch Times.

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Other parents expressed concern over bullying, the stress created by active-shooter drills, and the availability of sexual content on smartphones carried by other students.
Where They Went

Most parents who opted out of public schools over the last few years chose other educational options for their kids. Homeschooling was the choice for many, though the number of children enrolled is difficult to estimate.
“It is impossible to know the exact numbers because more than half of the states do not require parents to register as homeschoolers. Or if they are required, then the state does not keep count,” Weston said. He reported that his organization grew by a factor of 20 over the last three years.

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Public charter schools, which had more than doubled to 3.4 million in the preceding decade, enrolled another 270,000 students between 2019 and 2021, according to the National Association of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS).

Some students who left public schools in 2020 entered the workforce. About 2 million students dropped out of high school that year, according to NCES.

In 2017, the NCES found that 47 percent of high school dropouts were employed. If the percentage remained similar in 2020, that would mean over 900,000 students left school for work that year.

Other Shifts

Though not reflected in national totals, public school enrollment in large cities has been in decline for up to 20 years in some cases. These losses appear to be driven more by demographic changes than by parents opting out of public schools.

Enrollment in Denver public schools dropped 3 percent from 2019 to 2021, a change driven in part by low birth rates and a shrinking population, according to education news site Chalkbeat.

New York City’s public school enrollment decreased by some 38,000 students in 2020, but 9,376 of them simply crossed the river to New Jersey according to the website Gothamist. More than 5,100 students moved from New York to Pennsylvania that year, and another 5,600 to Florida.

Also, the population of New York state was in decline during that time. The state lost over 350,000 to domestic migration between July 2020 and July 2021.

Enrollment in Los Angeles public schools has dropped 42 percent since the early 2000s, according to the online publication EdSource. LA Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told journalists in July that recent losses are attributable partly to people moving to other states because of political ideology or the desire for lower taxes.

Return Unlikely

Relatively few students who withdrew from public school in 2020 have returned so far. Public school enrollment rebounded just 0.2 percent in 2021, including first-time enrollees, and remains at its lowest level since 2010.
Parents who made the choice to withdraw from public school during the last two years are highly satisfied with their choice, according to a report from NAPCS.

Nearly 90 percent of families who changed school types experienced a positive change as a result of the switch, with 57 percent saying their child was happier, according to NAPCS.

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“Some have gone back to public schools. There’s kind of a different mindset with homeschoolers. Kids who were coming last year were more public-school minded.”

She theorizes that some parents viewed homeschooling as a temporary haven during lockdowns but always intended to return to public school. Weston thinks most parents who try homeschooling will not return to public school.

“Parents have come to understand that one to two hours of one-on-one instruction with their children is far more productive than an entire week of classroom instruction, so homeschooling takes far less time giving the children the opportunity to explore things that they are actually interested in and that make them happy.”

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Via https://peckford42.wordpress.com/2023/01/19/the-great-dropout-why-1-4-million-children-left-public-schools-in-2020-and-where-they-went/