I was in Charlotte, North Carolina recently and I could not help but notice the number of private schools I passed while driving around the southern area of the city.
A number of those schools were also Christian schools.
This map which is about five miles square provides some perspective.
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| SourceL Google Maps |
50 years ago K-12 education was dominated by public and parochial schools.
Private schools were rare and generally catered to the very wealthy.
Homeschooling was almost non-existent because in most states it was illegal. Parents who did homeschooling were considered fringe fanatics.
It is estimated that only about 15,000 students were being homeschooled in the late 1970's.
The 1980's saw a number of court battles and legislative efforts to permit homeschooling,
By 1993, home schooling was legal in all 50 states.
Today 3.7 million students are being homeschooled.
The growth of homeschooling has expanded dramatically after Covid driven by curriculum dissatisfaction, safety concerns (drugs, bullying, school shootings) and the realization that children can learn more in less time than in traditional schools.
This is not the only parent that came to that realization during Covid.
Th following may be a unique situation but it still speaks volumes coming from a public high school Math teacher.
Of course, for many parents homeschooling is not feasible due to work schedules and other issues.
However, the concern about what is being taught in public schools and the school environment has driven the increase in enrollment in private schools, particularly Christian schools.
Consider the growth in private school enrollment in North Carolina over the last 20 years.
Enrollment increased by 24% just between 2019 and 2023.
There was a reason I saw so many private schools on the southside of Charlotte.
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| Source: https://www.wfae.org/education/2023-08-01/nc-private-school-enrollment-has-grown-24-in-four-years-new-data-show |
Almost every state is seeing declines in public school enrollments.
Oregon saw a decrease of 6.2% in public school enrollment between 2019 and 2023.
New York was down 5.9%, California and Colorado 5.2%.
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Percent Change in Public School Enrollment Between Fall 2019 and Fall 2023
Source: https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_5_2024.asp
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Some of this is due to demographic trends as a result of falling birth rates and migration to other states.
However, there is a clear trend away from public schools.
The biggest change over the last 50 years has been the decline in Catholic school enrollments.
In the mid-1970's Catholic schools had almost 4 million students. Enrollment today is less than half of that. This has largely been the result of lower birth rates in the Catholic community,
Notably, 20-33% of enrollment of students in Catholic schools today are not Catholic.
The decline in Catholic school enrollment has been made up with the post-1970's "Christian school movement". These schools were practically nonexistent 50 years ago. They now have enrollments of 3.0-3.5 million students.
More and more parents have been opting for private, charter or homeschooling options as dissatisfaction with public schools has increased and greater school choice legislation has been enacted across the nation.
For example, a Gallup survey in July, 2025 found that only 24% of Americans were satisfied with the quality of public education in the nation.
It ranks right at the bottom of a long list of aspects of the country that people are dissatisfied about.
In fact, people are more satisfied with what they pay in federal taxes and the availability of affordable healthcare than they are with the quality of public education.
Consider as well that more than twice as many people are satisfied with the acceptance of gays and lesbian people in the nation as compared to the quality of education.
And yet, the media narrative is that the former is a much bigger problem for the nation than the latter.
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| Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/656114/americans-state-nation-ratings-remain-record-low.aspx |
This dissatisfaction has not been lost on politicians as there has been a large movement across the country to provide parents with school choice in forms such as vouchers, education savings accounts (ESAs), tax-credit scholarships, and tax deductions for private school tuition, homeschooling, or other educational options.
35 states have enacted some form of school choice legislation in recent years.
This had made private schools more affordable to a range of parents, particularly those on the lower end of the income scale.
One recent education think tank study predicts we are on the cusp of a major tipping point that will see public school enrollment crater between now and 2030.
That study by The Learning Counsel predicts that by 2030 public school enrollment will lose 16 million students compared to today---that would be about one-third of the current enrollment.
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| Source: https://thelearningcounsel.com/articles/the-future-of-k12-education-so-you-can-prepare-for-it-public-education-is-set-to-lose-16-million-enrollments-by-2030/ |
The study sees public school enrollments going from 89% of the total of K-12 education today to 50% in 2030.
Former public school students would end up in private schools or homeschooling.
In effect, the study predicts we will soon see the privatization of public education.
That sounds to me as something that is beyond the realm of possibility in that limited time frame,
However, the trends cited in the study are unmistakable.
The study argues that critical mass has been reached with the dissatisfaction with public schools, new school choice legislation, societal change and technology innovation.
As to the last two points, the study made this observation.
..there are the peculiarities of the Alpha Generation to consider with their immersion into screens, the economy, massive out-migration from cities, outside industry trends causing consumer demand for highly flexible and personalized arrangements in all things, plus technology innovations promising to change the entirety of education workflow and the organization of institutions through a myriad of AI and mechanisms.
The study also suggests that state and local governments are not likely to be successful in stemming the loss of the public school students. In fact, they might actually welcome it.
Policies and lobbying to avert the outcomes were considered in the predictions as highly likely to fail with the principal driver simple economics. State and local governments cause massive savings for themselves in the act of privatizing K12 education, saving upwards of 70% or more on all costs while retaining the same income from taxation. That is billions of dollars for most States annually that is becoming increasingly difficult to argue against as traditional public schools continue to fail in their mission of educating the American public as seen on abysmal literacy and math scores from so much of the population. Negative sentiment has reached a fevered pitch.
What the study seems to overlook is the emerging revolt against property taxes which is the principal method of funding schools in the United States.
Governor Ron DeSantis has made this a major issue in Florida
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| Source: https://www.floridatrend.com/article/42514/desantis-wants-to-eliminate-florida-property-taxes-could-he-pull-it-off/ |
It looks like the issue may be headed to a vote by the people of Florida in November, 2026.
The issue is also gaining traction in my home state of Ohio.
A group is circulating petitions in Ohio for a constitutional amendment to abolish property taxes in the state.
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| Source: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/10/27/ohio-group-seeking-to-abolish-property-taxes-says-it-has-collected-well-over-100000-signatures/ |
Why have property taxes suddenly become a big issue?
1. Property values have risen dramatically and this has resulted in vastly increased property taxes.
2. This has most particularly affected senior citizens who have no children in school.
3. However, it is also affecting younger families with children who believe that the public schools have failed them and are paying private school tuition or homeschooling in addition to property taxes supporting those failing schools.
If you combine these two groups you have a formidable number of voters who are going to be reliable supporters of the idea of repealing or reforming the property tax.
The public schools may find that any windfall that they believe may result from more students moving to private schools or homeschooling is illusory.
The simplest answer for public schools to avoid losing more students is to get their act together, get back to basics and improve the product and the experience they deliver.
Their focus should be on taking the reasons away for why a parent would not want their child to attend the public school.
They need to prove the tax dollars spent on public education is a good value.
The history of the last 50 years does not provide confidence that the tax dollars going to public schools have been well spent.
Student performance has been flat at best while the numbers of administrators, principals and teachers have soared well past increases in student enrollment.
Where is the accountability?
Since many public school districts are controlled by the teachers' unions, this is usually not a priority. They seem to be more interested in serving the interests of teachers over students, making our public schools incubators for left-wing ideology and believing that all problems can be solved with higher taxes.
If you doubt that, here is Randi Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers spending her work day recently picketing with striking Starbucks baristas in New York City.
Improving our public schools to avoid declines in enrollment (that will inevitably affect the jobs of her teacher members) does not seem to be of any interest to her.
With people like this in charge, the declining state of public education will continue.
And more private schools will dot the landscape of Charlotte and other cities along with millions and millions of homeschoolers.
All of this was unimaginable 50 years.
And yet, this is where we are.
