BY: Sabrina Caserta and Brody Petska
American education has experienced an enormous shift – both in landscape and form– since 2019. COVID-19 hit and teachers, students and parents were forced to adopt a whole new style of learning: remotely. This opened up classrooms to parents fully for the first time in decades, and allowed them to actually see what their children were learning. Many paused and began to question.
These questions still remain to this day, and have had major implications for the United States public school system.
In fact, according to a recent study by the Learning Counsel, only 50% of U.S. children will be enrolled in public school by the year 2030. That’s compared to 90% in 2019. The net loss to public education– meaning traditional schools, charters, public online virtual schools– is estimated at just over 16 million students in the next six years, despite massive new enrollments of immigrant students.
This loss will be a devastating blow for traditional schools, politics, and the vendors that rely on sales to this sector. Some of this loss can be attributed to lower birth rates, however, the majority of loss will be due to inflexibility in school schedules. The sector that is seeing the biggest uptick in ‘enrollment’ will be homeschooling, which has been rising by roughly 65 percent every year, only moderately down from the 85 percent growth it saw during the pandemic.
The biggest drivers away from public schooling are as follows:
- Uptick in School Choice legislation
With so many States adopting Choice legislation and issuing vouchers, the biggest shift year is expected to be 2025-2026 as awareness expands amongst more parents and students. Many states have adopted choice legislation which allows families to take the money that would have been given to their school district to pay for their child and redirect it towards a different educational alternative using a “voucher.” Families can utilize these funds toward private school tuition, homeschooling, or other educational services. With all of the funding being from taxpayers, we will need to see that students are as if not more successful using these alternatives compared to public schools. Some other examples of educational alternatives include charter schools, online schools, and specialized programs focusing on areas such as STEM.
- Remote preference
There has been a surge in education technology and e-learning platforms in the last several years. These platforms often create a more personalized learning experience for students and allows them to progress through courses at their own pace. This can minimize a teacher’s workload and allow them to focus less on instruction and more on navigating each student’s learning. For example, Khan Academy has risen in popularity with its plethora of online videos and learning models. Over 2 billion people have viewed their videos since 2022. This highlights a remarkable trend toward “self-learning.”
- Over-politicization of education
With schools implementing more Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Critical Race Theory (CRT), Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) as well as sexually explicit materials, gender theories, and politically charged content, more and more parents are pulling their children out of public schools to steer clear of that possibility. The overarching sentiment is that this kind of content is not only dangerous to minors, but the basic functions of the schools are lacking– fundamental subjects aren’t being taught properly: reading, writing, arithmetic, science, civics, and more.
- Rising violence and bullying in schools
Many parents worry about the out of control statistics that are emerging in regards to discipline and overall safety in their child’s school environment. Misplaced interventions such as restorative justice have become widely implemented in public schools across the country, which only serve to further disrupt classrooms and keep misbehavior prevalent. After the Obama administration released its “guidelines on school discipline” in 2014, more schools felt pressured to adopt restorative practices to keep students in the classroom rather than face suspensions or expulsions due to their behavior. Two elements of this behavior model included increased school mental health professionals and billions of dollars invested in social-emotional programs to create “positive climates” for students. Rather than improve student behavior, it has worsened in the last decade.
- Immigration
In recent years, there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of student immigrants, legal and illegal, in America’s public schools. Taxpayers are burdened with supplying each immigrant with a free education, but it is costing the U.S. nearly $78 billion annually. This is straining state and local educational budgets and negatively impacting public opinion of government schools’ operations. With more non-English speaking students flooding American classrooms, teachers are being forced to slow down their lessons to accommodate said students, which negatively impacts the learning and growth of the remainder of the classroom.
How will this affect the education market?
The Learning Counsel states that state and local governments cause massive savings for themselves in the act of privatizing K12 education, saving upwards of 70% or more on all costs while retaining the same income from taxation. That is billions of dollars for most States annually that is becoming increasingly difficult to argue against as traditional public schools continue to fail in their mission of educating the American public.
More parents are aware of the abysmal literacy and math scores from so much of the population and negative sentiment has reached a fevered pitch. They predict that trends tend to accelerate when they reach a certain critical mass – and that tipping point is due to arrive well within the next three years.
Market offerings of things that emphasize ease of access, remote aspect, personalization, time flexibility, alternate socialization and recreation, and divergence from the norm of past whole-group and centuries-old subject treatment can also increase this shift. These things may take forms of online remote learning platforms, homeschooling resources, micro-schooling offerings, EdTech apps and tools, as well as private career and technical education programs.