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Source: Am a (private) school admin. A lot of these enrollment metrics have been driven by early childhood education, so I wouldn't put that much stock in this

Source: Am a (private) school admin. A lot of these enrollment metrics have been driven by early childhood education, so I wouldn't put that much stock in this being some sort of wider trend in terms of desire to enroll a child in school. But there absolutely is a trend in terms of the LACK of desire to be in a school as an adult; it has gotten harder and harder to recruit, and, speaking quite candidly, the job of being a teachers has actually just gotten worse. Naturally, this correlates with a reduction in the quality of the folks that we get to be in our classrooms (even at institutions like mine that pay top dollar for teaching talent). Even from where I am sitting it is extremely hard to confidently extrapolate what the long-run equilibrium of this will be. There's a camp that believes that this could have been a watershed moment for online instruction, but if you followed the play-by-play on the ground, it was almost the complete opposite: folks have been so disappointed by what counted as online instruction that in-person, good-ol-fashioned teaching has never been so highly sought. My guess is we will normalize with COVID protocols, staffing, and the rest fairly soon, and we'll returns to previous trends. The worst kept secret in primary education is that even at the high-school level for the most part we're little beyond a glorified day-care, and that the folks' who ought to matter most (the students) are pretty voiceless. This all combines for a fantastic recipe for why there is so much stasis in education, and unfortunately I think the smart money is on betting this won't change much at all, even after COVID.

troupe 5y ago
> this could have been a watershed moment for online instruction There are some private schools that are 100% virtual that are doing this incredibly well, but I don't know any public schools that fall into that category.
- pempem 5y ago
  Then you have not looked very far at all. It would be easy for me to identify public schools in PA with key clubs, AP classes, orchestra, all common sports, a series of foreign languages etc. The note missing from these comments is the connection between local taxes and the quality of the school.
  - cafard 5y ago
    I agree that local conditions make a huge difference, even within school district: but I think the parent comment's point had to do with virtual classes.
    - dorchadas 5y ago
      I would argue those things are usually tied together. The parents who are more committed are generally those who have the finances and time to be committed and thus are already in the better schools. It's the main issue in the school I taught at. Parents didn't care and kids knew and it rubbed off. Until the kid failed, then it was the teachers fault. They see no value in education, very generally. Rural southern school. And until that's fixed, and the social issues at home (kids sleeping in cars, only 15% of our kids had both parents at home, etc) we can't truly make improvement. But nobody wants to tackle the social issues.
  - troupe 5y ago
    Those are public schools that are 100% virtual?
g42gregory 5y ago
I would like to understand what schools actually do these days? I have to send my kids to separate Math lessons, - so they do not really teach Math. I have to send them to separate English lessons, - so they don’t teach English well either. All schools seemingly focus on is SEL, with highly questionable content. So now I need to monitor what schools tell my kids in class and then try to mitigate the damage. So what do we need these schools for, exactly?
- irrational 5y ago
  They are a government run daycare so their parents can work so the government can receive their taxes.
- thelock85 5y ago
  That’s a tough question considering the massive variability in school quality and culture at the micro (neighborhood/district) and macro (state/region) levels. But the short answer is schools are in a constantly losing race to serve all students needs, as guaranteed by the 13th-15th amendments and enforced by civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s (most recently reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act). I’d argue that schools, in an attempt to appease everyone, are designed for no one… modern democracy in action.
  - troupe 5y ago
    > schools are in a constantly losing race to serve all students needs, as guaranteed by the 13th-15th amendments I'm not following how those amendments establish a public school system or control it. But regarding your last sentence, I agree. The concept of "no child left behind" necessarily means you optimize for spending your finite resources in the areas they will have the least return on investment.
    - thelock85 5y ago
      My understanding is that there was no legal grounds for giving every student access to a basic education prior to these amendments. The 13th Amendment gave slaves rights as citizens. The 14th Amendment gave freedmen and non-assimilating immigrants rights to claim access to public services (including education) where they’d previously been denied. The 15th amendment guaranteed every man a vote in who gets to administer those public services (unfortunately took another 50 years to include women)… fast forward 100 years and LBJ signed Elementary and Secondary Education Act (among other civil rights legislation) because these constitutional rights were being trodded over in the worst of ways. Title I of ESEA set forth a federal tax base to ensure equal access where states (that previously made most policy decisions) could or would not. So that kinda established a good path that led to todays bad outcomes. I work a lot across U.S. K-12, including with large district superintendents, but I am by no means a policy or reform guru so take this with a grain of salt.

troupe 5y ago

> this could have been a watershed moment for online instruction There are some private schools that are 100% virtual that are doing this incredibly well, but I don't know any public schools that fall into that category.

pempem 5y ago
Then you have not looked very far at all. It would be easy for me to identify public schools in PA with key clubs, AP classes, orchestra, all common sports, a series of foreign languages etc. The note missing from these comments is the connection between local taxes and the quality of the school.
- cafard 5y ago
  I agree that local conditions make a huge difference, even within school district: but I think the parent comment's point had to do with virtual classes.
  - dorchadas 5y ago
    I would argue those things are usually tied together. The parents who are more committed are generally those who have the finances and time to be committed and thus are already in the better schools. It's the main issue in the school I taught at. Parents didn't care and kids knew and it rubbed off. Until the kid failed, then it was the teachers fault. They see no value in education, very generally. Rural southern school. And until that's fixed, and the social issues at home (kids sleeping in cars, only 15% of our kids had both parents at home, etc) we can't truly make improvement. But nobody wants to tackle the social issues.
- troupe 5y ago
  Those are public schools that are 100% virtual?

g42gregory 5y ago

I would like to understand what schools actually do these days? I have to send my kids to separate Math lessons, - so they do not really teach Math. I have to send them to separate English lessons, - so they don’t teach English well either. All schools seemingly focus on is SEL, with highly questionable content. So now I need to monitor what schools tell my kids in class and then try to mitigate the damage. So what do we need these schools for, exactly?

irrational 5y ago
They are a government run daycare so their parents can work so the government can receive their taxes.
thelock85 5y ago
That’s a tough question considering the massive variability in school quality and culture at the micro (neighborhood/district) and macro (state/region) levels. But the short answer is schools are in a constantly losing race to serve all students needs, as guaranteed by the 13th-15th amendments and enforced by civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s (most recently reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act). I’d argue that schools, in an attempt to appease everyone, are designed for no one… modern democracy in action.
- troupe 5y ago
  > schools are in a constantly losing race to serve all students needs, as guaranteed by the 13th-15th amendments I'm not following how those amendments establish a public school system or control it. But regarding your last sentence, I agree. The concept of "no child left behind" necessarily means you optimize for spending your finite resources in the areas they will have the least return on investment.
  - thelock85 5y ago
    My understanding is that there was no legal grounds for giving every student access to a basic education prior to these amendments. The 13th Amendment gave slaves rights as citizens. The 14th Amendment gave freedmen and non-assimilating immigrants rights to claim access to public services (including education) where they’d previously been denied. The 15th amendment guaranteed every man a vote in who gets to administer those public services (unfortunately took another 50 years to include women)… fast forward 100 years and LBJ signed Elementary and Secondary Education Act (among other civil rights legislation) because these constitutional rights were being trodded over in the worst of ways. Title I of ESEA set forth a federal tax base to ensure equal access where states (that previously made most policy decisions) could or would not. So that kinda established a good path that led to todays bad outcomes. I work a lot across U.S. K-12, including with large district superintendents, but I am by no means a policy or reform guru so take this with a grain of salt.