Vanishing Families, Shrinking Schools

City Journal ^ | 7/17/23 | Steve Malanga

[CFW]

Public school districts in large cities, many facing budget squeezes from plunging enrollments driven by parental discontent over Covid-19 policies, are unlikely to find relief anytime soon. The latest census data show that families with the preschool-age children who would form the next generation of students are abandoning cities, especially big ones, at unprecedented levels. The combination of outmigration and a slowdown in births is thus accelerating a trend that emerged even before Covid: cities with fewer and fewer children as a percentage of the overall population. Though the trend is most pronounced in states where population growth has lagged, like New York and Illinois, it’s also happening in growing places like Texas, suggesting a broad retrenchment by families with young children, especially to so-called “exurban” areas beyond cities and suburbs. Struggling school districts from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles have seen “massive” hemorrhaging of students, in the words of New York City mayor Eric Adams.

The population of young children, from newborns to age four, has been declining nationally because of a shrinking birth rate, but the losses are most pronounced in big cities, according to a new study by the Economic Innovation Group. Since the pandemic began, the under-five population of large urban areas has shrunk at about 6.1 percent, nearly twice the national rate. Declines in suburban counties are much smaller—about 1.6 percent since April 2020. And in the exurbs, the youthful population has grown modestly since the pandemic began.

[CFW]

Those in conservatives states are having more children than those in progressives states. The key for parents is to plan ahead to keep your children out of government funded indoctrination centers. Position yourself so that you can home-school your children so you aren't providing progressives the next generation to indoctrinate. They may not be having children, but they have no qualms in stealing yours.

[EEGator]

I was reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations the other day.
In the beginning he is thanking different people for different things they taught him.
One of his thanks is for the quality of teachers and teachings he learned at home, and not in schools.
If there are competent adults, homeschooling seems a wise path.
Just try to get with others for social interaction, and let the kids play sports for a public school.(if they want)

[Tell It Right]

IMHO, part of the lower birth rates are young adults not wanting to have babies (or if so, not as many). But part of it is we're in low point between the generations (i.e. we're between generations).

For example, us Gen-X'ers are a large generation, but it was a while before we were old enough to have kids ourselves. So birth rates declined for a while when the "generation" born between the Boomers and Gen-X'ers were the only ones making kids (for the most part), those kids which I believe are called Gen-Y. Now that fairly small generation is the one making kids until the larger Gen Z generation (at least as I define them) get old enough to have kids.

[T. P. Pole]

My town is going through this and is consolidating and closing schools. But somehow the tax rate still goes up as well as staffing. Gee, how does that work?

[jmacusa]

They’ll fill them up with illegal aliens.

[Chewbarkah]

Seems like good news. Logically spending on schools and thus tax rates in the areas with declining school enrolment will plummet, and the remaining schools will focus on quality education to attract students. There might be a slight delay until Hell freezes over.

[GailA]

HOME SCHOOL.

[GailA]

TRUE.

[GailA]

Memphis is too, but the school super wants a raise, for bad schools, gender, crt crap, no child is safe at any age in their schools, bussing will happen again as it is 62% black. All the smaller towns formed their own school districts a few years ago. That blocked Memphis from annexing their towns or suburbs. They have no way to grow or dilute crime or anything else.

[hanamizu]

A woman I taught with is now in her late 30s. When talking about the declining enrollment at our semi-rural school, she mentioned that none of her friends plan on having children. They all want to forego the time and expense that having children entails. They want the time and money for themselves. I think that’s a big part of it.

[LS]

Combine this with homeschooling, which doubled during the China Virus and is now continuing to expand, public cesspools, er, schools are going to collapse.

[LS]

You’d like Jean Twenge’s book “Generations.”

[cgbg]

One subtle issue is that children mean that the parents have hope for the future.

The Democrats are killing hope.

[redgolum]

Gen X is one of the smallest generations.

But the dip is deeper than that.

[mewzilla]

Meanwhile, from NYS...

NY voters could end debt limit for Auburn, small city school districts

[Wallace T.]

The Catholic population in this country expanded rapidly after 1840 due to emigration from Ireland and Germany. The Catholic bishops recognized that to preserve the religion of the immigrants in a somewhat hostile Protestant nation, they needed to establish parochial schools. Their efforts succeeded in creating a Catholic environment and preserving the faith.

Believers in conservative Christian denominations should learn from history. It is infinitely worse to be exposed to grooming literature in 2023 than for a Catholic child to be forced to read the King James Bible in 1853.

[shoff]

The teachers union is already working on the problem. Support democrats’ and illegal immigration means more bodies paying union dues. Who will pay for it? They don’t care.

[Wallace T.]

Your co-worker’s friends are candidates for cats and box wine, if not now, than in the near future.