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The New York Times is admitting that "Plunging enrollment in public school systems is seismic and according to experts will not be easily reversed."
The loss of students is so significant nationwide that cities that have lost a lot of students — including Denver, Albuquerque, and Oakland — are now considering combining classrooms, laying off teachers, or shutting down entire schools because enrollment equals income for the public schools.
However, the elite---including our president, vice president, speaker, and other leaders including governors, etc., don't send their kids to public schools---but they insist you have the right to do so if you please.
Hypocrisy.
Be informed, not misled.
The failing government-run school system.
The New York Times is sounding the alarm for so-called "public education."
The Times says:
In New York City, the nation’s largest school district has lost some 50,000 students over the past two years. In Michigan, enrollment remains more than 50,000 below pre-pandemic levels from big cities to the rural Upper Peninsula.
In the suburbs of Orange County, Calif., where families have moved for generations to be part of the public school system, enrollment slid for the second consecutive year; statewide, more than a quarter-million public school students have dropped from California’s rolls since 2019.
And since school funding is tied to enrollment, cities that have lost many students — including Denver, Albuquerque, and Oakland — are now considering combining classrooms, laying off teachers, or shutting down entire schools.
They also admit that "State enrollment figures show no sign of a rebound to the previous national levels anytime soon."
The Times, of course, dives deeply into the "root" cause for a failing public school system, putting forward two reasons for the failure of public education.
One, they say, is related to the fact that rates of birth and immigration have fallen, particularly in cities---the other, they say, is the coronavirus that supercharged the drop in enrollment. The Times says the virus caused parents to get fed up with mask mandates and remote instruction so they started homeschooling. Some kids, they say, have dropped out due to homelessness.
While that may be true to a degree---a small degree---there are other much more significant issues. The Times has to know this, but they don't touch on the materials the schools are teaching the kids, the indoctrination on social issues the schools have championed, and the way the schools have worked to exclude the parents from the child's education.
The Times concedes, "Now educators and school officials are confronting a potentially harsh future of lasting setbacks in learning, hardened inequities in education, and smaller budgets accompanying smaller student populations."
No question public schools are feeling the money crunch. They've earned it. They have imported a curriculum created completely for indoctrination purposes by some of the most radical, far-left organizations in the world: Climate Change, Critical Race Theory, Project 1619, LGBTQIA+ and all its perverted materials---you know the list, have replaced classical education.
Our kids are graduating middle school, high school and college having become highly skilled activists, but wanting in skills that provide them a career---something that actually pays their bills.
The coronavirus turned on the light allowing parents to see what the government-run schools are actually teaching---and what they are not teaching.
It was horrifying to millions of parents on both sides of the political spectrum.
Now public education has panicked over the money problem.
Public school spending varies greatly in different states and depends on several factors. One factor is the money that the schools are allocated directly correlates with how much the schools spend on each student per year.
The link above gives you a great deal of information about the cost of public school funding.
The bottom line is that with the mass exodus, the schools---particularly the unions, are in panic mode.
As the New York Times noted, kids equal dollars.
Example. Washington State spends about $12, 995 per student per year--the city of Seattle itself spends $16,543--- Oregon about $11,920. New York, the most of all schools, $22,040.
This would be about---not exactly, but about the amount each school receives from local, state, and federal government each year per student. So each student that leaves public education equals about that much in lost revenue.
Last year public education spent $720.9 billion.
Altogether, America's public schools have lost at least 1.2 million students since 2020. And families are continuing to pull their kids. You can do the math to see how many dollars the social nonsense the schools have embraced is costing them. And more importantly, costing the taxpayers.
People are sick of it, but the government has us in a box. And this, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy of all.
A lesson in hypocrisy.
Fox News published an article yesterday outlining how public education is failing: "School choice has become a hot-button issue after the COVID-19 lockdowns shined a light on the scope of the government’s authority and gave parents a window into public school curricula."
"Many private schools," they say, "stayed open while public school systems across the country closed in-person learning for entire semesters, even years, and remote learning lifted the veil on what public school kids are actually learning – and not learning."
But the essence of the article rightly focuses on the hypocrisy of the elite regarding education:
"Dozens of elected Democrats at the state and national level, who have publicly criticized or actively opposed private school choice measures, have personally benefited in some way from private schooling."
Fox notes that "When these politicians get called out on this hypocrisy, they’ll often try to defend themselves by saying that other families do indeed already have school choice since they can simply just choose to pay for private school tuition out of pocket if they want."
"To them, apparently, only rich people should have school choice. Their argument is even worse than that, because the taxpayer is already funding the education of the child. That same money should follow the child to the education provider that best meets their needs."
Fox gives a rundown on our current leadership who, to a one, oppose school choice. However, look where they are their kids go to school.
President Biden
President Biden attended the Archmere Academy, a posh Roman Catholic prep school in Claymont, Delaware, and he sent both of his sons, Beau and Hunter Biden, to attend the same private school that currently charges $30,900 in tuition.
Biden, whose 2020 presidential campaign was largely funded by teachers’ unions, repeatedly voiced opposition to private school vouchers on the campaign trail, saying it would destroy the public school system.
Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris has two stepchildren with husband Doug Emhoff, and both kids attended the Wildwood School in Los Angeles, a private school that currently costs $44,975 a year.
The National Education Association (NEA) teachers’ union hailed Harris in 2020 after she was announced as Biden’s running mate, calling the Biden-Harris ticket the "Dream Team" for the public school system. "She investigates for-profit charters and votes against vouchers," the NEA gushed in a news release at the time.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., attended the Institute of Notre Dame, a private all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore, and she revealed in her 2008 memoir "Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters," that she sent Paul Jr., her only son of five children, to attend Episcopal High School, an elite Virginia boarding school that currently costs $64,900 a year in tuition.
Pelosi praised her son’s school for playing "an important part" in her son’s life and for providing an "excellent education" during a 2003 speech in which she accepted the school’s Alan C. Phillips "Integrity In Action" award.
But Pelosi strongly opposes private school choice and has repeatedly voted against vouchers and scholarship programs for low-income children to attend private school.
The two largest teachers’ unions in the country almost exclusively donate to Democratic campaigns. So far in 2022, 98.61% of campaign contributions from the National Education Association have gone to Democrats, while 99.95% of campaign contributions from the American Federation of Teachers have gone to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' "Open Secrets" website.
That's one of the reasons that I, and many others, believe that public education, as it is, cannot be saved, but it can be reborn or simply replaced.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.