More Than a Million Students Fled Public School During Pandemic, Report Finds – By Karl Salzmann (Washington Free Beacon) / Jan 6, 2023
Public schools across the country have seen enrollment drop by more than a million students since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
“Declining birthrates, a rise in home schooling, and growing competition from private and charter schools” have caused a drop of 1.4 million students between fall 2019 and fall 2020, resulting in school closures nationwide, the Journal found. During the next school year, “enrollment failed to return to pre-pandemic levels and remained roughly flat.”
The enrollment decline comes as many public schools have taken a sharp turn to teaching left-wing politics. Districts from Washington and Minnesota to Maine and Virginia have implemented “woke” policies on transgenderism and “antiracism.”
School closures, meanwhile, harmed students. In deep-blue California, for example, students lost six years of math and reading gains because of the lockdowns, particularly hurting poor, black, and Latino children.
