Posted on 11/26/2025 9:26:34 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Students attending American public schools are struggling. Test scores from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), released this year, indicate that 33% of 8th graders—a greater percentage than ever before—are reading at the “below basic” level.
Additionally, only 22% of high school seniors are proficient or above in math, down from 24% in 2019, and only 35% are proficient in reading—the lowest score since NAEP began in 1969—down from 37% in 2019. Also, a record-high percentage scored at “below basic” levels in both math and reading compared to all previous assessments.
Parents across the country, especially in big cities, have become aware of the problem and are removing their children.
In Chicago, public school enrollment has decreased significantly over the past 15 years, from nearly 403,000 students in 2010-11 to just over 316,000 in 2025-26, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. Most recently, the district reported a decline of 9,081 students between 2024-25 and 2025-26. IPI states that more than one in three desks in the district are empty.
For the 2025–26 school year, the New York City Department of Education discloses that 793,300 students are enrolled in K-12 grades. That’s a 2.3% decrease from the previous year and a nearly 10% drop since 2020. The data also show that 112 of the city’s public schools have fewer than 150 students, up from 80 schools just two years ago.
Twenty years ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District had 737,000 students, but that number has now fallen to approximately 408,000, reflecting a decline of over 40%.
Among students who haven’t withdrawn, many are chronically absent. Using data from 44 states and Washington, DC, Nat Malkus, the director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, writes that the alarming rate of chronic absenteeism—students missing more than 10% of school days annually—was 23.5% in 2024.
This problem, too, is especially serious in our large urban areas. In Los Angeles, over 32% of students were chronically absent in the 2023-2024 school year, 34 elementary schools have fewer than 200 students, and 29 use less than half of the building. Even worse, Chicago’s chronic absentee rate is 41%.
As government-run schools are shrinking, private schools are expanding substantially.
Participation in private school choice—when students use public funds for private school tuition—has risen 25%, from just over one million students in 2024 to 1.3 million this year, according to a new analysis by EdChoice, a school choice advocacy group.
This has been the largest year-to-year increase since EdChoice started tracking the data in 2000, said Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice. He noted that it took about 24 years for private school choice participation to reach one million students, and this year it hit 1.3 million.
Florida educates over 500,000 students through its universal voucher and scholarship programs. Utah’s Fits All Scholarship launched in 2024 with about 10,000 seats and was immediately oversubscribed. Iowa’s Students First Educational Savings Account program enrolled nearly 28,000 students in its second year, surpassing projections.
Additionally, many parents have chosen to homeschool. In fact, homeschooling has reached an all-time high.
Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Homeschool Hub wrote earlier this month, “In the 2024-2025 school year, homeschooling continued to grow across the United States, increasing at an average rate of 5.4%. This is nearly three times the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of around 2%. Notably, 36% of reporting states recorded their highest homeschool enrollment numbers ever—exceeding even the peaks reached during the pandemic.”
It’s not just parents who are dissatisfied with public schools; only 26% of teachers believe K-12 education is heading in the right direction nationwide, a 5-point drop from the spring, when 31% felt optimistic.
Of course, the public school monopolists, especially the teachers’ unions, are upset about the advancement of school choice, but their reasons are baseless. One argument they use is that choice increases segregation. American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten nonsensically claims school choice was designed to keep schools segregated.
Wrong.
Researcher Greg Forster states that ten empirical studies have examined private school choice programs and their effect on segregation. Nine of these studies found that the programs reduced segregation, while one found no noticeable impact. None of the studies indicated that choice encourages racial discrimination.
No matter. The teachers’ unions, realizing they are losing in the court of public opinion, have resorted to litigation in various state courts. Wyoming, Missouri, Utah, South Carolina, and Montana have faced legal action from the unions, which are desperately afraid that parental choice will severely impact their bottom line.
So far, the unions’ efforts have been successful in two states.
In Wyoming, lawmakers launched the state’s first K-12 education savings account (ESA) program last year, beginning with the 2025-2026 school year. The $7,000 accounts can be used for private school tuition, tutors, homeschooling, or other education-related expenses. Nearly 4,000 students applied for them this fall.
However, the Wyoming Education Association, representing about 6,000 public school teachers, opposes using taxpayer dollars for a private option. In a lawsuit filed in June, the union and nine parents sued the state, arguing that the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act is unconstitutional because it violates a state regulation requiring a “complete and uniform system of public instruction.” The union was successful when a District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction against the voucher program in July.
In Utah, the state affiliate of the National Education Association successfully sued the state last year, arguing that the Utah Fits All Scholarship Program violates the state constitution by diverting tax revenue to private schools that aren’t free, accessible to all students, and supervised by the state board of education. The Utah Supreme Court is scheduled to review an appeal later this year.
In summary, we are engaged in a turf war. Parents, whose primary concern is their children’s education, are battling the establishment, particularly the teachers’ unions, whose aim is to protect their profits and maintain their toxic influence over K-12 education.
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Where in the heck are the parents!
I taught my kids algebra in the 3rd grade.
Now I have a PhD and a MD
Invest in your children.
I feel very sorry and terrible for parents who want to put their children in private schools and cannot possibly afford it. Too many public schools are practically a death sentence to a decent future.
Do you think all parents, especially single parents are capable of teaching children? Very many are not able to home school for many different reasons, and many are not smart enough, or educated enough themselves to handle it. This is a sad state of affairs for millions.
My Dad taught himself as a farm kid. He was quite accomplished in maintaining building systems - hotel laundries, boilers ac, heating and building upgrade and maintenance throughout his life.
He was extremely good at math, mechanics and chemistry. 8th grade education., some high school and then air force.
My wife and I live in the outskirts of a major city but within the city school district. The public schools stink, and that became an issue because we were considering taking full-time custody of a greatniece and didn't want her to go to the public schools. So we started looking for potential alternatives.
We found and toured a local Catholic school that was just fantastic. Great administrators, teachers, very highly rated. Best of all we learned that the city would give vouchers so it would actually be completely free.
We found in talking to the principal that about half of the students were actually from suburbs, and their parents paid the full $12k tuition each year because the school was so good. So here's the kicker - the school is required to take city residents first - meaning that despite it being a great school and absolutely free for city residents, city parents didn't send their kids there.
That was just astonishing to us. Here's a great, free school to send your kids to, without any of the big city problems, but city parents couldn't be bothered to send their kids there. It was suburban parents, whose own school districts were far better than the city's, who nevertheless paid the premium out of their own pocket so their kids could attend this school.
School problems aren't about a lack of money. They're about parents who simply don't care enough about their kids' educations.
Not true.
Having homeschooled for 12 years and being very active in homeschool support groups, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
And you act like all parents are idiots and incapable of learning. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that the parents can learn as they go as well?
Besides, public schools are not only so bad academically as to be useless, by the time those poor kids get done being indoctrinated in socialism, marxism, and sexual perversion, the kids would be far better off not even attending school./
What “liberalism” has brought to the USA.
Bailing...... to where??
Common Core was never repealed,(CC is in all private schools, that was the design) and the Department of Education has not been abolished by Congress.
They have us surrounded and boxed in. Are we escaping one deck chair of the Education Titanic for the other deck chair right next to it?
Defund public education NOW!
We have to burn the village to save it.
Yes.
If they have their children in their primary care, they can homeschool their children. If they can't do that, how can they feed and clothe their children, and do all the other things they do, called "parenting?"
With all the resources available -- financial (welfare) and educational (internet) -- there are no excuses for sending a child to a school when only a third emerge proficient in reading, and in some schools it's zero percent.
You’re right—private school is out of reach for a lot of families (and some private schools are still centers of indoctrination).
But there are affordable alternatives.
Lots of homeschooling parents now pool resources, hire tutors together, or form small learning pods that work almost like micro-schools. They’re not full private schools, but they give kids structure and good instruction at a fraction of the cost. There’s more flexibility out there than most people think.
Parents are the ones who caused the most damage to the school system.
We need as many states as possible to pass school choice laws and implement a voucher program - essentially privatizing education. Not only is public education lousy, it is infested with Communist, anti American, Groomers.
Bravo...well said. Degrees in “Education” are a crock
How have parents done this...please explain?
Is it by being passive?
Why do the public school bureaucrats care? We continue to have to pay for public schools through our property taxes. The incompetence in public schools (top to bottom) is appalling, yet continually funded. What a pathetic racket.
Glady!
When Johnny can't get into advanced class, the parents sue to get him in.
When Mary can't get decent grades, the parents sue to lower the grade scale.
When George takes his sweet old time to take the test he missed, the parents sue to give him all the time he wants.
When Eleanore gets a low grade because she doesn't turn in any homework, her parents sue to make homework unnecessary.
When Earnest can't get into the girls PT class, his patents sue to get him in.
When Greta is all screwed up with Tourette syndrome and severe autism, her parents sue to put her in normal classes.
...on and on again. ALL of the changes which destroy education were made to satisfy lawsuits or threats of lawsuits brought on by parents.
In our area the local conservative church works with parents to assist with home schooling.
That assistance takes many forms:
—Members who are good in math and the sciences offer their services to assist parents who do not have those skills. They use rooms in the church to teach small groups.
—The church offers its property as a playground where kids can socialize and play during afternoons.
—Members skilled in Internet usage train parents on where to find on-line resources as part of their home schooling.
The home schooled kids are easy to identify just by the way they walk and talk.
They hold their heads high and have good posture, are polite to adults and each other, have great vocabularies, and easily master their studies.
We do not have to create stupid and anti-social children in union run leftist public schools.
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