The Sandstorm: It’s Time To End Government-Run Schooling
September 28, 2021
By Larry Sand
We need to bulldoze the education establishment and privatize schools.
The National Center for Education Statistics recently published K-12 enrollment data for the 2020–21 school year, and it showed a 3% drop – about 1.5 million kids from the previous year. With a total k–12 enrollment of about 51 million students in the U.S., that equates to a loss of 1.5 million children. The largest segment of the leavers and no-shows were kindergarteners and pre-k kids, whose enrollment dropped by 13% last year. As American Enterprise Institute policy maven Rick Hess points out, “Such figures are unprecedented; public school enrollment has grown almost every year during the 21st century, with any declines coming in well under 1%.” While the main reason for the exit is Covid-related, there are other reasons to bail. The latest NAEP – also known as the nation’s report card – reveals that just 37 percent of U.S. 12th-grade students are proficient in reading and a pitiful 24 percent are proficient in math. It’s important to note that these results are from 2019, before the teacher union orchestrated Covid hysteria forced schools across the country to shut down.
So where are the escapees going? Some parents are availing themselves of the new private school options throughout the country. According to the latest available data, 18 states have created seven new choice programs and expanded 21 existing ones this year.
Charter schools also have experienced more growth in 2020-21 than they have in the past six years, according to data released last week from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. While traditional public schools were losing students, independently-run charter schools in 39 states saw an influx of 240,000 new students, a 7% increase over last year, more than double the rate of growth from the prior year.
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/the-sandstorm-its-time-to-end-government-run-schooling
