Sick of high taxes and progressive policies, more than 367,000 people abandoned the Golden State in 2021.
But, it’s not the only case of a mass exodus from California’s extremist progressive policies.
In the past year, 110,283 students left the California public school system. It follows a decline in the 2020-21 school year of approximately 161,000 students,
In fact, California’s public school enrollment has been on the decline for five straight years, and now sits at its lowest level in two decades. Since its peak in the 2004-05 school year, California public schools have lost 475,824 students.
Think of it another way: In less than two decades, California public schools have lost more students than the entire population of Long Beach.
Some education leaders have responded with a collective shrug. In their view, declining enrollment is a fait accompli.
“Declining enrollment cannot be fixed,” sighs one Northern California school superintendent. “We unfortunately can’t control the price of housing and can’t control when people have chosen to have school-age children,” says another public school district spokeswoman, whose Bay Area district has suffered a 24% enrollment drop over the past five years.
To be sure, California’s high cost of living, high taxes, and rising crime rates are causing many young families to leave the state. But, the state’s declining birth rate and decline in-state migration are only a part of the story. Since 2004, California’s statewide population has increased by 3.7 million people as public-school enrollment has dropped by nearly a half-million students.
Declining public-school enrollment cannot be explained away as a reflection of changing demographics. After all, the nation’s demographers — the U.S. Census Bureau – notes that “the global COVID-19 pandemic has sparked new interest in homeschooling and the appeal of alternative school arrangements has suddenly exploded.”
A growing number of parents in California are frustrated with protracted school closures, destructive COVID mandates, and lesson plans littered with political indoctrination. They have pulled their kids from the state’s public schools in favor of homeschooling, private schools, and charter schools.
In 2021-22, private school enrollment increased by 18,528 students. Meanwhile, homeschooling has soared in California since the COVID-19 pandemic began. In just two years, new home-schooling affidavits filed by parents with the California Department of Education have more than doubled.
“Anytime there’s a new mandate or vaccine requirement there’s another big jump in membership,” explains Lorene Foster, who runs a homeschool group in the North State.“Parents would homeschool not because you were against something but for something. You wanted the flexibility, or more time with your kids, or a religious education.”
Instead of examining why parents are pulling their kids from California public schools, Democrat politicians see parents as the problem. Last month, legislative Democrats defeated a bill by Sen. Melissa Melendez, R- Lake Elsinore, to make it easier for parents to view the lesson plans being taught at their local public schools. In opposing more transparent access to lesson plans, Democrat State Senator Connie Leyva audaciously declared it’s parents who need to be taught “a lesson.”
“Someone needs to give some of these parents a lesson on how to be professional,” Leyva said. “Yelling at people, screaming at people, running up and down the aisles, heckling at people and students who are speaking, I think those are some of the concerns that people have.”
If California public schools stand any chance of reversing the enrollment slide, we need more parents engaged, not less. That means listening to the concerns of disaffected parents, expanding parental involvement in local school boards, and making it easier for parents to review the lesson plans being used at their child’s school.
Shawn Steel is a practicing Seal Beach attorney and California RNC Committeeman.