Parents finding alternative educational paths for kids
There was attention this past week to a report that students nationwide had not lost much ground on their reading skills during the pandemic disruptions to schooling, but ground had been lost when it came to math.
In an effort to help, here’s a column full of math problems. They might not help with the skills kids need. But they provide numbers to think about if you’re trying to understand the shape of education around here.
PROBLEM 1: If there were 16,211 students statewide in the fall of 2017 who were getting home schooling and the number went up slightly in each of the next two years, but jumped 56% from last fall (17,021) to this fall (26,641), what does that say?
That’s still less than 3% of the students in Wisconsin, but it is a sign that many parents are looking for stability and may have lost some confidence in conventional schools since the pandemic abruptly closed schools in March.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction provided the home schooling total on Thursday, but has not yet released the total enrollment in private schools statewide. There is anecdotal evidence that private schools that have stayed open this fall have had significant enrollment increases. And some of the virtual charter schools in the state (which allow students to stay at home) have had big jumps in enrollment. These are pieces in a puzzle that help explain why public school enrollment statewide went down about 3% this year. For thousands more kids this fall, there is no place like home.
PROBLEM 2: If the number of home-schooled students in your district jumped 886% between last year and this year, what would you think? That’s the case in Whitefish Bay. The fall 2019 home schooling total was seven kids. This fall, it was 69. Think of it as two classrooms worth of kids.
Whitefish Bay public school enrollment went down 4.8% this year, with a big decline in 4-year-old kindergarten and pre-kindergarten special education programs (combined, they’re down 13%) and in 5-year-old kindergarten (down 8.8%).
The 886% rise can be taken as an anomaly since so few Whitefish Bay kids in prior years were homeschooled. But it is certainly eye-catching. Many districts in the state saw the percent of home-schooled kids go up by double digits or even low triple digits. But Whitefish Bay stands out.
PROBLEM 3: What about the little kids? Statewide, 4-year-old kindergarten and pre-school special education enrollment was down 15.8%, 5year-old enrollment was down 4.9%, and first through 12th-grade enrollment was down 1.9%.
Clearly, a lot of parents in all parts of
Wisconsin are eager (or at least feel it is best) to keep their little kids home this fall. There is no legal requirement to send kids to school until they are in first grade.
PROBLEM 4: If your high school had an enrollment of 1,939 a decade ago, 1,744 five years ago, 1,475 a year ago and 1,362 this year, what would you think that says?
Those figures are from Milwaukee Hamilton High on the southwest side. I don’t really know what the 30% decline over 10 years says about the vitality of the school, but I have to wonder.
For context, there are other schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools system that have had similar declines, as well as a large number that have had smaller declines. Auer Avenue School on the north side went from 378 in 2010 to 167 in 2020. Sherman School went from 504 to 253 in the same period. Vincent High went from 1,335 to 755.
Overall, enrollment in the main roster of MPS schools went from 76,729 in 2010 to 62,486 this year, a decline of almost 20%. From a year ago to this year, enrollment dropped 4%, mostly among very young kids, a situation similar to many other districts statewide.
Overall, the continuing enrollment decline for MPS is a big issue and decisions on matters such as closing schools may be needed in the not-so-distant future.
PROBLEM 5: The flip side of the MPS enrollment trend includes this striking number: For the first time, the percentage of city of Milwaukee children who are receiving publicly-funded education at private schools, using vouchers, went over 25%. It’s a slight increase in the percentage from a year ago, but it signifies how much the landscape has changed from a generation ago.
On the other hand, for the first time since 1997, the number of voucher students in Milwaukee declined this fall. The total was down slightly to 28,583.
(How can the percentage go up while enrollment goes down? Because the overall decline in the number of Milwaukee school kids was greater.)
It raises the question of whether voucher enrollment in Milwaukee is plateauing at about the 25% level.
The overall figures for city of Milwaukee kids this fall, best as I can put them together: There are 114,184 getting publicly funded education, down almost 4,000 from a year ago. Just under 55% are in MPS schools, 25% are using private school vouchers, 7% are in schools chartered outside of MPS, 7% in schools chartered by the Milwaukee School Board, 4.5% in public schools outside of
Milwaukee (using the state’s open enrollment option), and a little more than 1% are in three smaller programs.
PROBLEM 6: Where will the missing kids go in the future after (presumably) COVID-19 stops being such a shaping factor in school decisions? Statewide, how many little kids who are at home this year will end up in public schools? How many will find other educational paths? These will be numbers with impact statewide in coming years.
PROBLEM 7: These numbers shed light on where kids are going to school. But state tests were canceled last spring and there is no information from any other indicator of overall student achievement. So how are kids doing? It may we quite a while before anyone has answers that are clear and current.
Alan J Borsuk is senior fellow in law and policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@marquette.edu.