School & District Management What the Research Says

Public School Enrollment Continues to Stagnate

By Sarah D. Sparks — August 16, 2022 3 min read
Scarce classroom of students taking exams at their desks with empty desks in the foreground.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

More than two years into the pandemic, 1.3 million students are still missing from public school rolls, with financial implications looming for districts eyeing the end of extra federal and state pandemic aid.

The federal Education Department’s preliminary count finds 49.5 million students were enrolled in public schools last fall. That’s ticked up slightly from 49.4 million in 2020, when many schools were still closed to in-person instruction. But it’s still well below the 50.8 million students who were in public pre-K-12 before the pandemic began.

Earlier in the pandemic, schools saw the largest declines in the earliest grades, particularly for low-income and Black students. Incoming preschool and kindergarten classes did rebound, with 15 percent more pre-kindergartners and 5 percent more kindergartners enrolled last fall than in 2020. But in many states that boost was not enough to make up for the massive decline the prior year, when 20 states lost 10 percent or more of their kindergartners and at least four states lost more than 1 in 3 pre-K students, compared to fall 2019.

Two of the most populous states in the country had the largest ongoing enrollment declines: California, down 1.7 percent, and New York, down more than 2.2 percent since 2020. The declines have spurred a flurry of outreach efforts in both states, such as a 600-person door-to-door campaign in the Los Angeles Unified school district.

Boston University and University of Michigan researchers have found that the ongoing disruptions and changing restrictions “may have substantially altered parents’ perceptions of the quality of schooling their children might experience, as well as their perceptions of the physical risk of in-person schooling.”

But families have not responded equally. The researchers, led by Tareena Musaddiq, a public policy researcher at the University of Michigan, found low-income and Black families became less likely to have their young children start school during 2020’s remote learning, but white and wealthier families were more likely to pull even their older children from public school systems in favor of home-schooling, private schools, or other options. As of last year, white students’ enrollment continued to decline across grades.

Sandra Kim, spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association, said about 9 million families home-school today, accounting for 11 percent of all families with school-age children. That’s up from only 3 percent in 2019.

“I think one of the questions that we are all still coming to is, what does this new normal of mid- to post-pandemic look like?” said Ross Santy, the associate commissioner for administrative data for the National Center for Education Statistics, which released the new enrollment data. “Obviously fall of 2020 was a unique time when vaccines were not out yet, the pandemic was at its most impactful, and we saw a large, significant decline that we hadn’t seen in recent years in public school enrollment.”

While virtually all schools are back to full in-person instruction, Santy said, it could be another few years before education leaders will be able to confirm a new enrollment baseline.

“There are still disruptions; there are still things that are affecting the delivery of education and therefore people’s comfort level with public education,” Santy said.

The Common Core of Data includes a snapshot of reported enrollment for all district and charter public schools that is taken each October. The current data include 49 states, the District of Columbia, Bureau of Indian Education schools, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Washington state did not provide data by the submission deadline. Enrollment data are expected to be finalized by the end of 2022.

Related Tags:

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
College & Workforce Readiness Webinar
From Classrooms to Careers: How Schools and Districts Can Prepare Students for a Changing Workforce
Real careers start in school. Learn how Alton High built student-centered, job-aligned pathways.
Content provided by TNTP
Student Well-Being Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Drive K-12 Academic Performance and Wellbeing
Wish you could handle emotions better? Learn practical strategies with researcher Marc Brackett and host Peter DeWitt.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Celebrate Five Years of The Savvy Principal—A Newsletter Just for School Leaders
The Savvy Principal is full of news, insights, and actionable tips on school leadership.
1 min read
Close cropped photo of a laptop, planner and phone with ear phones attached to it. The phone is displaying an edition of Education Week's The Savvy Principal enewsletter.
Liz Yap/Education Week + Adobe Stock
School & District Management Worried About Withheld Education Funding? Here's How Leaders Can Speak Up
Education leaders must communicate the consequences of withheld K-12 funding to Congress and their own communities.
6 min read
Superintendents Dr. Alex Marrero, Alberto Carvalho, and Joe Gothard
Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero, left, Madison Superintendent Joe Gothard, and Los Angeles Superintendent Alberto Carvalho are among district leaders who've pushed for the release of withheld federal K-12 funding. The three have also sought to explain the consequences to their own communities.
David Zalubowski/AP, Andy Clayton-King/AP, Anthony Behar/AP
School & District Management Women, People of Color Still Underrepresented in Superintendent Ranks
Superintendents are getting younger, earning slightly more, and working longer hours, yet their pay still lags behind inflation, AASA found.
4 min read
Illustration of a Black woman professional carrying a briefcase and dressed in red and walking alongside an oversized male dressed in blue pants with his white hand also carrying a briefcase.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
School & District Management Why These K-12 Administrators Left Education—and What They Did Next
What do a nurse, an emergency responder, and an AI expert have in common? They used to work in schools.
7 min read
11 people walk through a large, dark room towards the exit door, which lights up the scene in a dramatic way. People carry boxes and various bags, indicating that they are relocating or have been laid off from work. Vector illustration.
DigitalVision Vectors