Anecdotally - in my area, private school attendance has surged. I know other families who have taken to home schooling.
My son is in a private middle school. There's a good chance they wouldn't be in private middle school if the pandemic didn't happen. He was very frustrated being at home with Mom and Dad. After a year, he was getting very angry and depressed. I didn't expect to be paying for private school, but given his situation, here we are...
Yes... but one million students, what percentage surge would that be in private schools if they all ended up there? I think it would have to be much larger, especially considering many private schools don't have that much additional capacity. (Edit: Also considering marginalized groups are the most likely to drop out... they are the least likely to afford private schools.)
I strongly suspect many students have just completely fallen off the radar. Who knows what will happen to them.
Also anecdotally, I don't think truancy enforcement has been particularly strict during the pandemic. I know our school has given a lot of grace to students going on vacation, etc compared to pre-pandemic.
> many private schools don't have that much additional capacity
In terms of teachers, maybe not, but in terms of facilities, any school that was around in the 70s-80s should have plenty of classrooms and lockers. And I imagine that as public schools shrink, there will be teachers looking at those jobs.
The public schools around here are having a serious staffing crisis because wages, which were already low and stagnant for years, didn't go up as wage inflation hit the rest of the economy, and teachers are sick of the whole thing and burnt out, so are leaving. There's a big "leave for literally anywhere else—you'll be better-paid, less stressed, and more-respected" movement among teachers right now, because all that's more-or-less true.
Even then, households that choose to homeschool or private school their children still contribute to public schools. So the article's claim of needing to close schools due to fewer pupils and lack of funding is left unanswered. There may be migration involved.
Every state manages school fundig differently, and within states, it can vary, too. But in California, most districts are funded by the state, and the funding formula is based on attendence (and details about the student population). Some districts opt to get their funding directly from local property taxes which don't vary by attendance, but most districts get more funding by accepting the state funding and choose that instead.
If public school attendence goes down in such a system, the school districts (and therefore the schools) get less funding, but tax collection probably doesn't change. Instead there will be a surplus in the general fund. California has a lot of formulaic budget requirements, so if attendence dropped enough, it might derail the rest of the budget, but I'm not familiar with how close to the requirements the school budget tracks.
This website claims there are ~160k fewer 10 to 14 year olds than 15 to 19 year olds in the US. I presume that means 40k to 50k kids age out every year and who will not be replaced by kids in the class under them for high school.
Uh… it says right there in the article that some went to private schools, some are now home schooled, and some were never born (declining birth rates means overall number of potential students dropping).
Anecdotally, I heard from some public school teachers that when they moved to online school during the pandemic, some students, who previously were failing, blossomed and excelled, but went back to failing when in-person school was brought back. It turns out that in-person school doesn’t work well for everyone.
Anecdotally, home-school. My friends have not sent their kids back. Mom dropped out of work to full-time home-school, and they like it better. They have not asked for my opinion, but I worry for their kids.
