Schools face crisis point; course correction needed

Public school enrollment has been declining for the last 10 years in McMinnville, punctuated by a precipitous plunge during the pandemic followed by a limited recovery in succeeding years that seems to have now run its course. That was driven home earlier this month in a board presentation delivered by the FLO Analytics consulting firm.

But if misery loves company, McMinnville sure has plenty of it. Declining public school enrollment has been trending just about everywhere in recent years — on the state, regional, national and even international levels. Globally, the big driver has been declining birth rates, an increasingly pervasive phenomenon of the last 50 years.

Despite medical advances that have continued depressing death rates over that period, deaths now exceed births in more than 120 nations, leaving them below the replacement rate. The roster includes the U.S., which first fell below the replacement rate almost 20 years ago, along with Russia, China, India, Canada, Japan and most other nations qualifying as developing or developed.

In the U.S., the impact of the sub-replacement birth rate impact has been exacerbated by a sharp rise in homeschooling, distance learning, charter school and private school options. That serves to further erode the public school enrollment base.

The pandemic triggered an exodus that shows no signs at this point of ever fully reversing. Many students have been lost to private schools, in both voucher and non-voucher states, and the rest to other alternatives.

A recent slowing of immigration also seems to be depressing enrollment in some parts of the country, though it’s difficult to quantify at this point.

Nationally, public school enrollment peaking at 50 million is projected to slump as low as 36 million by 2050, less than 25 years hence.

Oregon’s public school system has lost more than 37,000 students since 2020, total enrollments falling from 582,000 to 545,000. McMinnville is down more than 700 students, from 6,700 to slightly under 6,000.

Locally, a decline to 5,100 is being projected over the next 10 years, mirroring statewide trends. Incoming kindergarten classes are running only about half the size of outgoing high school graduating classes, and that is destined to ripple on through the system going forward.

The question is, how should we respond?

A Transforming Schools project developed by the Learning Policy Institute suggests a course of action that seems worth some consideration to us: turning declining enrollment into an opportunity for school transformation.

It argues the U.S. has been largely following a “factory model” not well-suited for 21st century needs. In response, it is calling for more innovation, empowerment, engagement, real-world relevance and individualized tailoring.

A leading national educator recently warned in Education Week: “The pandemic seems to have catalyzed changes in how families evaluate school options, and these are not purely temporary disruptions.”

The essence of the argument is this: Students and parents made a conscious choice to seek more supportive and personalized modes of learning. They would best be won back by districts tasking professional educators with developing rich veins of their own with like features.

Simply scaling back staff and facilities as enrollment-based funding dries up virtually guarentees easing into long-term decline. That amounts to aimlessly circling the drain.

The challenge, it seems to us, is to respond the way a healthy company would to nimble new competition — revamp the product lineup to meet the changing demands of today’s consumer and market the heck out of it.

We believe in the American public school. We think it is better equipped than any of its alternative education counterparts to attract a core of committed professional educators capable of delivering a comprehensive education of high quality.

But it can’t simply rest on its nineteenth and twentieth century laurels as the 21st century ushers in a period of turbulent change. It needs not only to respond, but to respond creatively and effectively.

More of the same on a gradually diminishing scale is certainly not the answer.