Michigan in top 10 for public schools K-12 enrollment drop
(The Center Square) – Michigan public schools experienced a 4.13% drop in K-12 enrollment from 2019-2021, according to federal data published by the 74.
Total K-12 enrollment nationwide of about 51.1 million pupils during the 2019-20 school year means the public school system lost roughly 1.5 million pupils.
The worst states:
Mississippi and Vermont: -5.02% declineKentucky: -4.82% declineWashington: -4.79% declineNew Hampshire: -4.69% declineMaine: -4.35% declineNew Mexico: -4.34% declineMichigan: -4.13% decline
MI School Data says Michigan lost roughly 62,000 pre-k through 12th-grade students last fall as many families switched to private school or homeschooling.
The exodus from Michigan public schools has a variety of factors. Many private schools closed in-person service for only a few months during the COVID-19 pandemic, while some public schools such as Ann Arbor and multiple other schools will start the next year online-only, despite lifted COVID-19 restrictions. Other double-income parents were called back to in-person work, complicating remote-only schooling.
Head of Highpoint Virtual Academy Mary Moorman told The Center Square her school saw enrollment jump by 1,000 in July of 2020, up from the typical 200.
The tuition-free public charter school academy is in its fifth year of cyberschool, while Moorman has been teaching online for 13 years.
Michigan has lost an average of 13,000 students per year in the last decade, but lost almost five times that in 2020, the Detroit Free Press reported.
It’s unclear whether the student exodus will continue or whether students will return to public schools. A 2020 RAND survey of district leaders found that one in five schools have already adopted or plan to adopt virtual schooling post-pandemic.
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