Nationwide drop in public school enrollment both a challenge and an opportunity

Where I grew up, almost everyone went to public school. We had one small, private religious school in the nearby city. However, our communities were built around the K-12 buildings in our districts. We not only received our education from the public school but our identity was wrapped up in it, especially the feats and failures of its football and basketball teams. 

That experience, while widespread, is less and less the norm. An increasing number of families are opting out of traditional public schools, enrolling their children in charter and private schools or taking up some form of homeschooling. Only Rhode Island and Delaware saw an increase in the percentage of students enrolled in traditional public schools in the 2022-2023 school year. The numbers fell in all of the other 48 states. 

These statistics result from several national trends. Many parents are frustrated by the quality of education their children would receive in local public schools. In some places, this point is about attempts at indoctrinating progressive views as part of the mandated curriculum or from particular teachers’ decisions in the classroom. 

Parents also object to the usual approach taken more generally by our public schools in educating. Much of the effort focuses on preparing young persons for future employment. While a worthy and needed goal, our children are more than their potential contribution to the country’s gross domestic product. As humans, they have minds and hearts. Their minds need to be cultivated to know truth and to discern good over evil. Their hearts need habituation in virtue, learning to love what is true and good — not just knowing they exist. Most importantly, they possess souls that need to be nurtured and directed toward the eternal things.

Finally, parents simply want more say in their children’s education so they can have greater influence regarding these other priorities. More states have now passed measures giving these mothers and fathers easier ways to participate in and make decisions about how their children learn. These new measures include 10 states now providing essentially universal school choice, usually with funding essential to many families to make non-public school options affordable. 

These are all good and helpful measures. However, those seeking to reform education cannot stop at school choice. At least for the foreseeable future, most students will receive their education in public schools. The charter, homeschool, and private options will continue to grow but remain a decided minority. 

What we need, then, is a plan for reforming public schools, too, building off the good that already exists in local areas and instituting policies to renew where needed. 

Some states are addressing these needs already. States are setting up new standards for what is taught in public schools, drawing on fine new curriculums developed to enhance how we teach various subjects. I see this growth especially in my own field, where better approaches to teaching America’s political and social history hold much promise for the future. 

Some states, such as Florida, are also giving parents greater access to and voice regarding curricula used in the classroom. If approached properly, these efforts should push schools and parents toward establishing better cooperative relationships around the common goal of adequate, even excellent, education for our youth. 

Thus we should neither celebrate too much nor despair too greatly about the recent drops in public school enrollment. We should see the numbers and their underlying trends as both challenges and opportunities. Our education system needs to be remade to accommodate 21st-century needs and to honor timeless truths and practices. 

If we do this right, then generations to come will be indebted to us for providing renewed ways of learning. These children will have the chance to learn what it means to be a human being and a citizen. And they will have the opportunity for a better life. Those are worthy goals toward which we, together, must strive.

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Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.