Where have all the children gone?

 Where have all the children gone?

The number of children who are not in public or private schools has exploded since the end of the pandemic.  The missing kids are not being home schooled, not in public schools, not in private schools and not to be found in the few online schools that have popped up since the pandemic.

In 2023-24, well after the pandemic, school census reports were still missing 2.1 million children or 4% of school age population.  This is roughly five times the number since the before the pandemic.  

Where are these kids and what is the loss to them and the country?   What we do know is that if they are not in school, they are not learning basic academic skills.  The loss to them and to our economy is huge.   Where are they?  What has happened to them?

At first blush the explanation was the students had gone to private schools.  But that isn’t proving to be true.  Private school enrollment has stayed steady at about 9% of school age population.  The steadiness is even true in states like Arizona and Florida who award state taxpayer tuition assistance for private schools.  

The scary thing is that a much larger share of the kids not in school is from high-poverty, Black majority districts.  In fact, 1 in 4 of these children ages 5-17 are NOT in school.  This compares to 1 in 6 students in higher income school districts.  The steepest enrollment losses are concentrated in predominantly Black school districts.  A third of students in predominantly Black districts are not in traditional public schools.  This is double the share of white and Hispanic children.  Funding for traditional public schools is often determined by enrollment.  So when these students do not come to school, the funding for these schools goes down.   It’s vicious circle.   

We were already expecting a huge contraction rate of school age kids.  American women are averaging 1.7 children over their lifetimes.  Not enough to replace the population, that requires a fertility rate of 2.1%.  More immigrants coming into the country would help, but instead or encouraging immigrants we are sending them away.

Buckle up folks, we are missing children and opportunity.  What is most frightening is that we DON’T KNOW where the missing kids are!