Public school enrollment losses post-pandemic cannot be fully attributed to changes in population, or shifts towards charter or private school enrollments, pointing to a rise in homeschooling among families. This trend raises questions about the motivations behind the increased interest in homeschooling. Targeted interviews reveal that these…

We investigated U.S. state and national trends in the enrollment of students ages 6 to 21 years under the specific learning disability (SLD) category across 15 consecutive school years (2005-2006 to 2019-2020). We used multi-level modeling to estimate the effects of state and time on SLD enrollment and conducted a policy analysis of three states…

The number of English learners enrolled in public schools has grown substantially in the United States over the past two decades. The growth is especially large in states in the South and Midwest that have not been traditional destinations for recent immigrants. In this study, we examine the effects of an influx of new English learners on students…

Background: Magnet schools emerged during the 1960s as part of an effort to desegregate schools across the United States. Their primary purpose is to provide appealing educational settings to induce voluntary desegregation through parental choices (George & Darling-Hammond, 2021). Some of these magnet schools operate at a regional level to…

In 2008 and 2012, Pioneer Institute published reports documenting declines in enrollment in Massachusetts' public schools. At the time, enrollment had fallen by about 35,000 students over a decade, or roughly 0.5 percent per year, with especially large drops in western Massachusetts and parts of Cape Cod. This paper examines enrollment trends…

Arizona shifted to using current-year enrollment, instead of prior-year enrollment, as the basis for determining state aid for school districts following the passage of Arizona Education Finance Amendment (AEFA) in 2017. This study examines the short-term effects of AEFA implementation on school inputs--namely, expenditures and district personnel,…

Do education choice programs take money from public school districts, leaving fewer resources for students who remain? The issue at the heart of this question is one of the most powerful arguments offered by skeptics and opponents of such programs. A district's total budget might expand or contract as its student population expands or contracts.…

Through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD), the U.S. Department of Education disseminates data on local educational agencies (LEAs), commonly known as school districts. During the school year (SY) 2018-19, the CCD recorded 13,711 LEAs with English learners (ELs) enrolled. This fact sheet looks more…

The data presented in this report provide facts about the extent to which local, state, and national governments commit resources to public education. The level of commitment to education varies on a state-by-state basis. National Education Association (NEA) Research offers this report to its state and local affiliates as well as to researchers,…

Senate Bill 19-129, concerning the regulation of online schools, calls for the Colorado Department of Education's Office of Online and Blended Learning to produce an annual report on the number of students who withdraw from Colorado K-12 online schools after the pupil enrollment count date. This report is required to include the dates on which…

In September, President Biden declared that "the pandemic is over," but parents with school-age children will not soon forget the struggles of the prior two years. Starting in March 2020, nearly all school buildings nationwide closed and remained shuttered for the rest of that school year. These closures upended families' routines,…

According to the American Community Survey (ACS), about one-quarter (24.8 percent) of the U.S. population over the age of 3 was enrolled in school in 2021. This report provides a comprehensive picture of the state of school enrollment using recently published data from the ACS. It outlines modern enrollment trends while also offering comparisons…

In this study, we examine an at-scale effort to encourage the formation of career pathways in California, with the goal of estimating the initiative's causal effects on community college enrollment. We leverage a discontinuous assignment rule used to award grant funds to obtain credibly causal estimates of an ambitious $500 million effort to…

A growing number of charter schools are serving rural communities. More than 320,000 students are enrolled in rural charter schools across the United States. Due to a smaller population and geographic isolation, charter schools in rural areas face many challenges. The autonomy and flexibility of the charter school model can help mitigate some of…

When public schools across the Empire State open their doors for school year 2019-20, pupil enrollment will be at its lowest level in at least 30 years--continuing a long-term decline that has increasing relevance to Albany's perennial legislative battles over school funding and education policy. Including charter schools and pre-kindergarten…