{"id":4416,"date":"2022-04-12T22:56:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T05:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=4416"},"modified":"2022-04-12T22:56:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T05:56:27","slug":"the-curious-case-of-californias-disappearing-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2022\/04\/12\/the-curious-case-of-californias-disappearing-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curious Case of California\u2019s Disappearing Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EMILY HOEVEN, Grass Valley, Calif.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just aren\u2019t sure where they\u2019ve gone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That comment from Barrett Snider of Capitol Advisors \u2014 a lobbying firm for school districts \u2014 came in response to sobering\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dq.cde.ca.gov\/dataquest\/dqcensus\/EnrGrdYears.aspx?cds=00&amp;agglevel=state&amp;year=2021-22\">data released Monday by the state Department of Education<\/a>: For the first time since the start of the century, fewer than 6 million students are attending California\u2019s public schools,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/education\/k-12-education\/2022\/04\/california-public-school-enrollment\/\">CalMatters\u2019 Joe Hong reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Statewide enrollment this year fell by more than 110,000 students to about 5.89 million, a 1.8% decline from last year \u2014 on top of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/newsletters\/whatmatters\/2021\/04\/california-public-school-enrollment-drops\/\">the 2.6% drop<\/a>\u00a0notched during the first year of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>But even after accounting for California\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/politics\/2021\/05\/california-population-shrink-exodus\/\">slowing population growth<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/explainers\/housing-costs-high-california\/\">high cost of housing<\/a>, education officials are struggling to explain where all the kids went:\u00a0<\/strong>For the first time since at least 2014, charter school enrollment also fell \u2014 by a whopping 12,600 students. And although private school enrollment ticked up by 9,000 students \u2014 a 1.7% increase \u2014 that doesn\u2019t account for most of the public school exodus,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/education\/k-12-education\/2022\/04\/california-public-school-enrollment\/\">Joe reports<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>And while kindergarten enrollment increased after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/education\/2021\/02\/low-kindergarten-attendance\/\">a massive decline last year<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>first-grade enrollment enrollment dropped by 18,000 students \u2014 one of the steepest drops for a single grade level. That suggests that many students who were of kindergarten age in 2020 did not return to public schools for first grade.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dwindling enrollment poses both\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/education\/2022\/01\/california-schools-budgets\/\">financial<\/a>\u00a0and existential questions for schools and state lawmakers:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cWe should not only be concerned about the fiscal consequences of having less students, we need to question where the students are going and how their educational needs are being met,\u201d Edgar Zazueta, the executive director of the Association of California School Administrators,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/edsource.org\/2022\/california-k-12-enrollment-plunges-again-falls-below-6-million\/670111\">told EdSource<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Indeed, the enrollment data is just the latest example of the myriad challenges facing California schools \u2014 and students \u2014 as they work to recover from the ravages of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Academic achievement:\u00a0<\/strong>California\u2019s average eighth graders showed the skill and knowledge of fifth graders on standardized math tests in 2021, according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/edsource.org\/2022\/student-math-scores-a-five-alarm-fire-in-california\/669797\">a new analysis<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Equity:\u00a0<\/strong>As debate rages over\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/education\/k-12-education\/2022\/03\/california-math-framework-draft\/\">proposed changes to California\u2019s math framework<\/a>\u00a0that some critics have derided as \u201cwoke math,\u201d one San Diego school took the controversial step of eliminating several honors classes. There\u2019s \u201ca question of, is that label getting in the way of expanding opportunities of access to more students?\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/news\/education\/story\/2022-04-10\/san-diegos-largest-high-school-quietly-eliminated-several-honors-courses-parents-are-outraged\">said Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board trustee<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>School closures:\u00a0<\/strong>The ACLU of Northern California\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclunc.org\/news\/aclu-urges-attorney-general-investigate-oakland-s-racially-discriminatory-school-closure-plan\">urged Attorney General Rob Bonta<\/a>\u00a0on Monday to investigate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/newsletters\/whatmatters\/2022\/02\/oakland-school-closures-california\/\">Oakland Unified\u2019s plan to close or merge more than a dozen schools<\/a>, alleging that it \u201cviolates Black students\u2019 fundamental right to equal educational opportunity.\u201d Meanwhile, the board of education\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/eastbay\/article\/School-closures-cuts-and-controversy-Oakland-17068465.php\">can\u2019t agree<\/a>\u00a0on the size of the district\u2019s deficit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Staff shortages:\u00a0<\/strong>As the state struggles to address its\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/education\/k-12-education\/2022\/03\/california-teacher-shortage\/\">dearth of teachers<\/a>, Sacramento City Unified\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scusd.edu\/e-connections-post\/weekly-update-10\">announced Friday<\/a>\u00a0that the district could lose $46 million if it doesn\u2019t find a way to make up the 2,400 minutes of learning lost when campuses closed for an eight-day employee strike.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" src=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/EmilyHoeven_headshot_web_02-80x80.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/EmilyHoeven_headshot_web_02-160x160.jpg 2x\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-bio-text\">\n<div class=\"author-bio-header\">\n<div>\n<h2 class=\"accent-header\">Emily Hoeven<\/h2>\n<div class=\"author-meta\"><a class=\"author-email\" href=\"mailto:emily@calmatters.org\">emily@calmatters.org<\/a><\/p>\n<ul class=\"author-social-links\">\n<li class=\"twitter\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Emily Hoeven writes the daily WhatMatters newsletter for CalMatters. Her reporting, essays, and opinion columns have been published in San Francisco Weekly, the Deseret News, the San Francisco Business&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Statewide enrollment this year fell by more than 110,000 students to about 5.89 million, a 1.8% decline from last year \u2014 on top of\u00a0the 2.6% drop\u00a0notched during the first year of the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade.webp",800,517,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade-600x388.webp",600,388,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade-768x496.webp",640,413,true],"large":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade.webp",640,414,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade.webp",800,517,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade.webp",800,517,false],"darknews-slider-full":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade.webp",800,517,false],"darknews-featured":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade.webp",800,517,false],"darknews-medium":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade-720x517.webp",720,517,true],"darknews-medium-square":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/School-kids-fade-350x350.webp",350,350,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/News\/school\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Kids<\/a>","tag_info":"Kids","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4416"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4418,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4416\/revisions\/4418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}