1) Many more parents are choosing to home school, and enrollment in religious based-schools, or private schools is surging since 2019 Key drivers include parents seeking more personal instruction, concerns over public school curricula (gender identity/CRT), and a desire for specific, value-based education (yes, I'm using code words).
2) In higher end neighborhoods, many K through 9 student are in direct to home internet schools associated with colleges that are taught by college professors (e.g., ASU). People thought that this would be just a hangover from C-19 shutdown, but instead it has become an alternative since wealthy people view the CA public schools as crappy even in well to do areas, and they have their own social network for their kids.
3) Reduced birth rates
4) Lower immigration (and likely in future years the impact of enforcement)
5) Migration by younger families for various reasons such as affordability. This may becoming a very important factor, especially as business moves out of state.

This has all sorts of implications. Over 100 California school districts have issued at least 2,400-5,000+ preliminary layoff notices to staff for the 2026-27 school year per the CA Teacher's Association. And most Districts are looking at budget cuts.Declining enrollment often leads to consolidating or closing school sites to manage costs, which can be disruptive to students. School bonds are starting to face voter opposition.

There are many ways districts can reduce programs or services, but they can only operate severely under enrolled schools for so long before the situation becomes financially untenable. In the short run there are fixed costs associated with operating school sites, including maintenance, utilities, custodial services, and administration, that simply can't be cut quickly. Folks in Fresno are about to find out, and it is getting ugly. Academics also think there is an equity issue as wealth families have alternatives such as expensive on line college plans for grade schools, where a parent is home to make sure the kids are paying attention.

With CA running such a huge deficit, I don't see any meaningful support coming from the State. This is a long run problem, and critical for colleges like Cal that admit many CA public educated students.

I await everyone's snarky remarks.

There is also a group of parents that think they have a future pro athlete on their hands and homeschool them so they can get extra sports and fitness training each day. A couple kids on my son's soccer team are experiencing this. I also ran into a mom at a birthday party who homeschooled her 9 year old son who had a personal trainer focusing on recovery, a speed and agility trainer, a private soccer coach, and commuted from Los Angeles to play for San Diego Surf and a futsal team based out of the southeast. Crazy stuff.

oski003 said:

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There is also a group of parents that think they have a future pro athlete on their hands and homeschool them so they can get extra sports and fitness training each day. A couple kids on my son's soccer team are experiencing this. I also ran into a mom at a birthday party who homeschooled her 9 year old son who had a personal trainer focusing on recovery, a speed and agility trainer, a private soccer coach, and commuted from Los Angeles to play for San Diego Surf and a futsal team based out of the southeast. Crazy stuff.

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That is hilarious, and sad, what a waste of their time and resources.

We live in a two tier system. The affluent get better education, better health care, better police, better services, etc. It!'s the rich what get the peaches and the poor what get the punches.

Student funding in California is now a RECORD HIGH! Since Governor Newsom took office, it’s increased 66%— reaching $28,282 per student as the state makes historic investments in public education. pic.twitter.com/u1RJVYZmrf

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) May 14, 2026

"I await everyone's snarky remarks."

I think only fans of Cormac McCarthy's writing style are going to comment.

"A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools."
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

oski003 said:

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There is also a group of parents that think they have a future pro athlete on their hands and homeschool them so they can get extra sports and fitness training each day. A couple kids on my son's soccer team are experiencing this. I also ran into a mom at a birthday party who homeschooled her 9 year old son who had a personal trainer focusing on recovery, a speed and agility trainer, a private soccer coach, and commuted from Los Angeles to play for San Diego Surf and a futsal team based out of the southeast. Crazy stuff.

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The number of parents who are bat **** crazy about little Johnny or Susie being an athlete - and their willingness to put their money where their mouth is - is astonishing. The stories I could tell…

The market is speaking. People with the opportunity and means to make a choice are doing so. And while students playing sports is a factor, I suspect it is a very small one in terms of the number of students in that category.

The only long term solution is for public schools to offer a better product. Not holding my breath for that - I think the public school unions and other apparatchiks would rather make cuts that make changes. Imagine what will/would happen if vouchers became more available?

No snark; good thread topic. Do we have any idea which of the 5 reasons you cite account for the biggest enrollment declines?

Lol. When a starter home costs 900,000 becaise we have vastly undebuilt you dont need 2000 words to explain this.

https://www.ppic.org/blog/enrollment-is-falling-across-californias-school-districts/

California public schools are in the midst of a long-running trend of declining enrollment. Enrollment fell this past year by nearly 75,000 students. Since 201516, enrollment has dropped in all but one year, and there are now nearly 500,000 fewer students in public TK12 schools. Declines have been substantial in many coastal regions, while the Central Valley has seen enrollment increase. However, all regions are projecting lower enrollment over the next decade.
This year, the statewide decline in enrollment accelerated. At 1.3%, the drop in enrollment in 202526 was over 2.5 times larger than the average annual decline experienced over the past three years. It also exceeded the decline projected by the California Department of Finance (0.2%). This difference was primarily driven by larger-than-expected declines across high school grades. Another factor was slower growth in transitional kindergarten compared to projections.
Roughly 62% of districts saw enrollment fall this past year. Nearly all these districts saw drops of less than 5%, but the declines amounted to a significant number of students in larger districts. For example, enrollment fell by roughly 4.5% in Los Angeles Unified School District, or nearly 17,000 fewer students.
Looking back several years reveals the sustained nature of these declines. Since 201516, two-thirds of districts have seen falling enrollment, and over half have seen declines of more than 5%. Nearly 40% have seen enrollment fall by more than 10%. Growth is less common, with 24% of districts growing more than 5% in the past decade (and 18% of districts growing more than 10%).
These patterns of growth and decline are evident across regions. The greater Los Angeles region has seen the most substantial decline (16.5% since 2015) and projects an even larger decrease (18.1%) over the next decade. Other coastal regions also project continued declines, though these are smaller in size. Conversely, enrollment has grown significantly in much of the Central Valley, with the Sacramento metro region seeing the largest growth in the past decade (8.8%). However, projections imply this will not continue: no region expects enrollment growth over the coming decade.

Big C said:

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No snark; good thread topic. Do we have any idea which of the 5 reasons you cite account for the biggest enrollment declines?

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Every parent, no matter their economics, wants the best for their children. The school system has not figured out how to deliver that with all the other deeds it wishes to perform. The thrust seems in the wrong direction. The solutions escaping those in power to make change for a variety of reasons. The answers are delicate but the right resources are certainly not acknowledged.

https://www.ppic.org/blog/californias-plunging-birth-rates/

California's birth rate has reached near-record lows, contributing to a slowdown in the state's population growth and portending decades of slow growth to come. What isand is notdriving the state's lower birth rates?
California's birth rate (births per 1,000 residents) is at its lowest level in more than 100 years. The number of births has fallen from a peak in 1992 of 613,000 to 420,000 in 2021 (2022 is on track to be similar to 2021).

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The article goes on to note that birth rates are down nationally, not just in CA.

Other sources indicate state total population has increased each of the past @5 years.

Big C said:

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No snark; good thread topic. Do we have any idea which of the 5 reasons you cite account for the biggest enrollment declines?

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It really is hard to measure that stuff from everything I have seen. My post was triggered by an academic study that was all doom and gloom about the bad high school product the UC schools were receiving (which is a different issue and a narrative I question), that could not come up with specific numbers on enrollment losses, but listed factors. The growth in private schools is easy to measure and is rather apparent (especially the growth in Christian schools), but private school enrollment still clearly is dwarfed by public enrollment. But yes it is a big factor. The number of students overall in the State has been declining also but how much of that is out migration of younger families versus lower birth rates is unknown.

The sharpest declines in enrollments have been coastal regions, and I'm not sure what to make of that other than the areas tend to have less affordability, and thus would suggest they are too expensive to have many kids and people with kids are moving out to less expensive locations. Nearby Nevada's population is booming, but its student population is stable. The State, like Arizona, has a huge number of retirees, so it hard to draw comparisons with California. Oregon's population continues to grow at a steady pace, but its public and private student base is declining, with the public base declining faster. So some of all the factors maybe if Oregon is a comparison (do they have the same affordability issues?) .

The college internet stuff is just mostly in high net worth areas, and those kids most likely are not going to a public college.

wifeisafurd said:

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So some of all the factors maybe if Oregon is a comparison (do they have the same affordability issues?).

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In the Portland metro region the answer is Yes. Not so much in the rest of the state.

Oregon is spending more on education than ever but getting worse results. It's a trend over a few years.

wifeisafurd said:

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PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Student funding in California is now a RECORD HIGH! Since Governor Newsom took office, it’s increased 66%— reaching $28,282 per student as the state makes historic investments in public education. pic.twitter.com/u1RJVYZmrf

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) May 14, 2026

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Okay, I'l bite. Then why are all these school District having financial stress and cutting teachers? It just can't all be about fixed costs.

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Same thing is in effect in Oregon. One line of thought says the extra money is going to administrative staff and to fund employee's state pension contribution (PERS).

tequila4kapp said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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So some of all the factors maybe if Oregon is a comparison (do they have the same affordability issues?).

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In the Portland metro region the answer is Yes. Not so much in the rest of the state.

Oregon is spending more on education than ever but getting worse results. It's a trend over a few years.

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Kids are on their phones most of their waking hours and have the attention span of gnats. It's hard for teachers to fight that day in and day out, so they dumb down the curriculum while grading even easier.

That said, my oldest is a somewhat-above-average student at a top performing public high school in the Bay Area and he is working harder and learning more than I ever did at that age, so there are good things happening out there.

Your post is right on. California politicians have believed that the solution to the state's declining test scores is just to throw more money at the problem, to the delight of the teachers' unions. Obviously, that hasn't worked. School curriculum in K through 12 needs to place more emphasis on the basics--Math, English, Science, writing skills, etc. and less time spent on social engineering. We should encourage more widespread use of vouchers to create competition for the overly bureaucratic public school systems.

Katie Miller: “What’s a conspiracy theory that you believe in?”

Liz Wright, wife of Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “…The teachers unions want to keep the students stupid so they can control them and turn them into Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/x84c6saOFz

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 21, 2026

SBGold said:

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PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Katie Miller: “What’s a conspiracy theory that you believe in?”

Liz Wright, wife of Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “…The teachers unions want to keep the students stupid so they can control them and turn them into Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/x84c6saOFz

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 21, 2026

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Definitely a wacko conspiracy theory. They made her dumb yet she turned out to be a Repub.

VOTE BLUE AND VOTE GAVIN

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You'd think it was a lot less wacko if you worked in schools. There are several teachers I work with who openly spout hate filled rhetoric towards conservatives, some even violent. Every school I've worked at has had similar. I have never seen it happen the other way around. The only teachers, that I know of, who put their own feelings and beliefs onto the students are liberals.

BearlySane88 said:

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SBGold said:

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PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Katie Miller: “What’s a conspiracy theory that you believe in?”

Liz Wright, wife of Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “…The teachers unions want to keep the students stupid so they can control them and turn them into Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/x84c6saOFz

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 21, 2026

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Definitely a wacko conspiracy theory. They made her dumb yet she turned out to be a Repub.

VOTE BLUE AND VOTE GAVIN

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You'd think it was a lot less wacko if you worked in schools. There are several teachers I work with who openly spout hate filled rhetoric towards conservatives, some even violent. Every school I've worked at has had similar. I have never seen it happen the other way around. The only teachers, that I know of, who put their own feelings and beliefs onto the students are liberals.

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I'm around schools enough to get a sense, I don't believe what you posted. The overwhelming majority of teachers want people to be free thinkers and question things. They let the students shape their own mindsets.

Free thinking? There's something off when 95-99% of teacher union political donations go to Democrats.

SBGold said:

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BearlySane88 said:

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SBGold said:

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PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Katie Miller: “What’s a conspiracy theory that you believe in?”

Liz Wright, wife of Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “…The teachers unions want to keep the students stupid so they can control them and turn them into Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/x84c6saOFz

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 21, 2026

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Definitely a wacko conspiracy theory. They made her dumb yet she turned out to be a Repub.

VOTE BLUE AND VOTE GAVIN

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You'd think it was a lot less wacko if you worked in schools. There are several teachers I work with who openly spout hate filled rhetoric towards conservatives, some even violent. Every school I've worked at has had similar. I have never seen it happen the other way around. The only teachers, that I know of, who put their own feelings and beliefs onto the students are liberals.

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I'm around schools enough to get a sense, I don't believe what you posted. The overwhelming majority of teachers want people to be free thinkers and question things. They let the students shape their own mindsets.

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Don't believe it then but it's the reality and being around schools isn't the same as working in schools. I never claimed this was all teachers or even a majority of teachers but the majority of teachers doing it, and in my personal experience the only ones doing it, are left politically.

PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Free thinking? There's something off when 95-99% of teacher union political donations go to Democrats.

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Very off

SBGold said:

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PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Katie Miller: “What’s a conspiracy theory that you believe in?”

Liz Wright, wife of Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “…The teachers unions want to keep the students stupid so they can control them and turn them into Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/x84c6saOFz

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 21, 2026

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Definitely a wacko conspiracy theory. They made her dumb yet she turned out to be a Repub.

VOTE BLUE AND VOTE GAVIN

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Remember, she's married to the Secretary of Energy Chris Wright who had lied about the U.S. Navy having escorted an oil tanker thru the Strait of Hormuz when it NEVER happened.

His tweet got deleted.