California sabotaged the education of its students during the COVID-19 pandemic with unscientific, unrelenting school closures and restrictions. As a result, the continued decline of the state’s schools has accelerated.
The California Department of Education reported that the state saw a 1.8% decrease in enrollment for K-12 students in public schools (including public charter schools). They lost more than 110,000 students in the 2021-22 school year. This drops the state below 6 million students for the first time since the 1999-2000 school year. In the 2020-21 school year, the state had suffered a 2.6% drop in enrollment, losing over 160,000 students.
The losses have been most severe on California’s liberal coasts. In 2020, all regions in the state lost students, but the biggest losses were in Orange County, Los Angeles County, and the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2021, California’s inland regions made mild gains, while the liberal coasts continued to lose students. Los Angeles County saw a 3.5% decrease in enrollment, while the Bay Area saw a 3.1% decrease.
The losses stem from a variety of factors. For example, private schools grew by 3.9%, gaining over 18,000 students. Homeschooling likely played a role as well. And then many students are leaving California with their families. The state is experiencing a decline in births and out-migration to states with friendlier business and educational climates. But the steep drop in enrollment beginning in the 2020-21 school year makes COVID-19 the primary culprit for the drop.
California went over the top with COVID-19 restrictions, and nowhere were those restrictions more needless or shameful than in schools. Gov. Gavin Newsom did not begin pushing for school reopenings until August 2021, after a year of unnecessary closures, even as states such as Florida kept students in school without interruption. Periodic school closures and quarantines plagued the 2021-22 year as well. California did not lift its mask mandate in schools until March 2022.
The steep drop in enrollment is going to lead to several permanent school closures, as protesting parents in Oakland, California, have come to find out. California prioritized COVID panic over data that showed students were not at risk from the virus but would suffer from the consequences of remote “learning.” California failed its students, and it’s no surprise that those students and their families have begun looking elsewhere for their education.
