The Hill: Public education enrollment is decreasing

Declining birth rates and an increase in education options are spelling a drop in public primary and secondary school enrollment, according to an Aug. 25 report at The Hill that drew from several analyses.

The National Center for Education Statistics projects that national enrollment in kindergarten through 12th grades will drop to 47 million by 2031, down from 51 million in 2019, The Hill reported. The number dropped one million from fall 2019 to fall 2023.

Tara Moon, a policy analyst at Future Ed, a think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said that the US birth rate is at historic lows.

“We definitely see that with kindergarten and first grade having pretty significant drops in the past couple of years,” Moon said in the article.

She noted that families’ departures from big cities leave reduced enrollment in their wake, and upticks from immigration won’t offset it.

The article noted that families have been steering toward homeschooling and private schools, especially since COVID-19. In the past five years, many states have passed school choice legislation that allows homeschoolers and private schools to use funding previously dedicated to public education, Carrie Hahnel, a senior associate partner at Bellwether, told The Hill.

Schools might end up reducing operations, cutting classes and positions, the article pointed out, citing a Reason Foundation report that 98 schools closed in the 2023-24 school year. 

Matthew Joseph is a senior policy adviser for education funding at ExcelinEd, a national nonprofit that seeks to support state policies that promote children’s success. He said state laws for schools, such as how many staff members are required for a given academic subject, make it more challenging to adapt to the decreases.

>> School choice movement sees surge with dozens of states now on board <<

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