U.S. Schools Face a Crisis as the Number of Children Drops

With fewer students, many public school districts are confronting unfilled classrooms, and hard choices about school closures.

As American women have fewer babies each year, the number of young children in the United States is dwindling. The trend is now catching up to the nation’s public school districts.

There are simply fewer children to attend school in America today: The number of public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade has fallen in 30 states since the mid-2010s.

Enrollment in U.S. public schools plunged during the pandemic. Public schools lost more than a million students.

But elementary school enrollment was falling even before the pandemic, largely because of declining fertility.

Declining enrollment has hit many of the nation’s largest urban school districts, including Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, a New York Times analysis found. But smaller and suburban districts are shrinking at a similar rate.

Fewer students means less funding, which is tied to enrollment numbers. Many districts are now facing painful budget cuts — and heated conversations about whether to close schools.

- Authors: Sarah Mervosh, Francesca Paris and Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times