As school children head back to class this fall, the hangover from pandemic school policies continues to buffet public education. The stubborn refusal by big city school systems to remain open during COVID has sparked all manner of backlash. Some parents realized that charter and parochial schools remained open, and those students did not suffer learning loss. Others discovered, to their dismay, the politically tinged curricula put in front of their children. Many voted with their feet to leave big city public schools such as New York City’s, whose school system has lost nearly 100,000 students, an enrollment drop similar to other systems that insisted on remaining closed for long periods.

Still others, with less fanfare, have found themselves to be the targets of “deconsolidation” movements: efforts to break up big city systems into smaller, independent, suburban-style districts where parents would exercise more control and teachers unions less. A proposal to break up the Milwaukee public school district into eight smaller districts passed the Wisconsin legislature this year (only to be vetoed by the state’s Democratic governor). But the most energetic attempt to cut a big school district down to size is ongoing in metro Las Vegas.