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Enrollment Off in Big Districts, Forcing Layoffs
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: July 23, 2012

Enrollment in nearly half of the nation’s largest school districts has dropped steadily over the last five years, triggering school closings that have destabilized neighborhoods, caused layoffs of essential staff and concerns in many cities that the students who remain are some of the neediest and most difficult to educate.

While the losses have been especially steep in long-battered cities like Cleveland and Detroit, enrollment has also fallen significantly in places suffering through the recent economic downturn, like Broward County, Fla., San Bernardino, Calif., and Tucson, according to the latest available data from the Department of Education, analyzed for The New York Times. Urban districts like Philadelphia and Columbus, Ohio, are facing an exodus even as the school-age population has increased.

Enrollment in the New York City schools, the largest district in the country, was flat from 2005 to 2010, but both Chicago and Los Angeles lost students, with declining birthrates and competition from charter schools cited as among the reasons.

Because school financing is often allocated on a per-pupil basis, plummeting enrollment can mean fewer teachers will be needed. But it can also affect the depth of a district’s curriculum, jeopardizing programs in foreign languages, music or art.

While large districts lost students in the 1970s as middle class families left big cities for the suburbs, districts are losing students now for a variety of reasons. The economy and home foreclosure crisis drove some families from one school system into another. Hundreds of children from immigrant families have left districts in Arizona and California as their parents have lost jobs. Legal crackdowns have also prompted many families to return to their home countries.

In some cases, the collapse of housing prices has led homeowners to stay put, making it difficult for new families — and new prospective students — to move in and take their place.

But some say the schools are partly to blame. “We have record-low confidence in our public schools,” said Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento and head of education policy for the United States Conference of Mayors. (He is married to Michelle Rhee, the lightning rod former chancellor of the Washington public schools and now an advocate for data-driven reform). “If we have high-quality choices in all neighborhoods, you don’t have that exodus taking place,” he said.

The rise of charter schools has accelerated some enrollment declines. The number of students fell about 5 percent in traditional public school districts between 2005 and 2010; by comparison, the number of students in all-charter districts soared by close to 60 percent, according to the Department of Education data. Thousands of students have moved into charter schools in districts with both traditional public and charter schools.

Although the total number of students in charter schools is just 5 percent of all public school children, it has had a striking effect in some cities. In Columbus, Ohio, for example, enrollment in city schools declined by more than 10 percent — or about 6,150 students — between 2005 and 2010, even as charter schools gained close to 9,000 students.

A year ago, Tanya Moton withdrew her daughter, Dy’Mon Starks, 12, from a public school and signed her up for Graham Expeditionary Middle School, a nearby charter school.

“The classes were too big, the kids were unruly and didn’t pay attention to the teachers,” Ms. Moton said of the former school.

She said she sought help for her daughter’s dyslexia at her former school, but officials “claimed that she didn’t need it.” After transferring to Graham, Ms. Moton said, “one of the teachers stayed after school every Friday to help her.”

During the recession and weak recovery, pinched state financing and dwindling property taxes forced many public schools to shed teachers and cut programs.

“The fewer students we have, the fewer dollars we’re getting” from the state and federal government, said Matthew E. Stanski, chief financial officer of Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland, where enrollment has fallen by almost 5 percent in five years, despite sharp gains in nearby counties.

Officials have laid off about 100 teachers and district employees, cut prekindergarten to half days and canceled some athletic programs, Mr. Stanski said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07.....p-in-enrollment.html

And in Schenectady, parents HAVE NO CHOICE.    Not after the closing that DV was cheering about this spring, hailing the pastor (who refused to face parents) as so wonderful.

Sure, there is Brown school.   Will DV ask his two mommies for money so he can pay the tuition so the the over-taxed parents can send their kids to a school where they can get educated.

THE PROBLEM SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIXED 20YEARS AGO.....nah...we're STILL at the freakin' campfire....AND....tossing
adderall and the like so HUMANS fu(king fit in the system....

PATHETIC...SHAME SHAME SHAME.......


NOT EVERYONE IS FROM THE SAME CAST.........

I'M SURE MR. NEURO DOC WAS BRILLIANT IN SCHOOL...NO DRUGS OR SUCH....AND LOOK AT HIM GO....

SAD SAD SAD STATE.....WE ARE IN....