Is public schooling under threat, and who is the real enemy?

As a public educator, I have been conditioned to oppose school choice and charter schools. As a parent, I am a strong supporter of both. Every year, the primary focus in our district is the same: “declining enrollment.” The primary reason given is charter schools. There are currently three brick-and-mortar charter schools within a mile of our high school, and since my hiring in 2017, our school enrollment has declined by over 1,000 students. There are plenty of other options if students stay home and participate in a hybrid online program. “In recent years, charter schools have more than tripled in number, and the number of students they serve has increased ninefold” (Haber, 2021). Last year, this led to the layoff of 262 teachers within the district. This year, all teachers on temporary contracts will be released, and 14 teachers will be displaced from our campus. Opponents of charter schools say they are not required to accept all students, and so poaching top talent from districts inflates their test scores. Supporters will insist that it is easy for parents to choose better facilities and more motivated educators, since scores reflect the quality of education students receive.

How can Schools Respond to Declining Enrollment?

In a recent meeting with our new Assistant Principal, he identified declining enrollment as the number one issue to be addressed at our school site, since enrollment declines at our school exceed the district average. I was surprised by the implication and asked what he believed would solve the problem, and he listed two things. Teach better. Find something you are doing well and promote it. If our test and performance scores are high and our programs are recognized, students and parents will want to attend. It’s a simple concept, but easier said than done. Beyond the academic awards, we need to rethink how we are approaching education on our campuses. There have been whispers in our district about closing Middle and High Schools, and they have already closed some of the elementary schools. The Learning Policy Institute highlighted the Anaheim Union High School District and its use of declining enrollment to rethink how it structured its schools. Their planning team spent a year creating a plan for smaller learning communities focused on project-based learning, civic engagement, alternative assessments, and individual learning technologies (Thompson & Darling-Hammond, 2025). Within the smaller school, they were able to cohort teachers and students for multiple years, building accountability and a positive campus culture. We need to approach declining enrollment with a focus on innovation rather than playing the blame game.

What are Parents Looking for?

The elephant in the room is culture and values. As the parents of a five-year-old, my wife and I are weighing the possible options for her education: homeschooling, charter school, private school, and public school. Right now, we are favoring the hybrid charter school option. We don’t agree with the values and policies that many districts support, even though both of us have worked in the public school system, and we would like more control over the pace and content of our children's learning. In a recent study of families, “parents framed charter school choice as a strategy to mitigate risk and protect their children’s educational futures” (Szabo, 2022). Parents' perception of risk centered on previous negative experiences with safety and academics, as well as the district's negative response when they attempted to intervene. Likewise, we want our daughter and son to grow up with support for our values and beliefs, without having to wonder whether those beliefs will be challenged as they develop. Let me be clear, public schools, districts, and teachers are not inherently bad, and we may end up sending our kids to a public school. However, having the choice of how and where to pursue their education is very meaningful and important. 

Haber, J. R. (2021). Sorting Schools : A Computational Analysis of Charter School Identities and Stratification. Sociology of Education, 94(1), 43–64.

Szabo, J. (2022). “I Just Didn’t Want to Risk It”: How Perceptions of Risk Motivate Charter School Choice Among Latinx Parents. American Educational Research Journal, 59 (4). https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312221078579

Thompson, C., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2025). How Declining Enrollments Can Become an Opportunity for School Transformation. Learning Policy Institute. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/blog/how-declining-enrollments-can-become-opportunity-school-transformation