The Parent Trap: Mom and Dad Are Withdrawing Their Children From Public Schools

What if instead of fighting them, school districts tried catering to them?

When it comes to schools, parents are speaking with their actions, not just their words. Attention might be focusing on a vocal minority of families protesting. More notable is the numbers who are pulling their children from traditional public schools.

To meet this moment, schools need to find ways to help parents and students make progress and scrap the notion that the solution will be the same for every family. Even after almost all schools were open last fall, enrollment in public schools was down across the country. 

New York City announced recently that it expects to lose another 30,000 students this school year — on top of the nine percent drop in enrollment it had already experienced since the pandemic. Meanwhile, numbers enrolling in alternative schools are also up.