Public school wasn’t much before the pandemic, and they’re even worse now. Many parents will pursue alternatives after they reopen, if the teachers’ unions ever let them reopen. From Will Flanders and Cori Peterson and realcleareducation.com:
“She’s a happy kid, a good student, and the virtual learning was a disaster for us,” said Erin Haroldson of Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, whose eight-year-old daughter was receiving virtual education from her local public school last spring. When it looked like schools would go virtual again this fall, Haroldson asked her daughter if she would rather continue at Mount Horeb or start in person at a new school, where she would need to make new friends. When her daughter responded “Mom, I want to go to a new school,” the Haroldsons enrolled her in High Point Christian School in Madison.
The Haroldsons are not alone. According to a new Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) study, the state’s public schools saw an unprecedented enrollment decline this fall, and the school districts that started virtual learning at the outset of the school year lost the most students. Across the Badger State, the average district saw an enrollment decline of 2.67%. Districts that went fully virtual drove this decline, seeing an average 3% decline in enrollment.