Enrollment Rebounds in Republican School Districts, Declines in Democratic Ones

Contradicting the Democratic Party’s critique of Republicans on public education, a new report finds that blue school districts are losing students even while red districts are moving toward their pre-pandemic enrollment numbers.The American Enterprise Institute report surfaced as the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, is attacking the right for sabotaging public schools with culture wars and school choice programs. “Conservatives are working consistently to undermine educators in this country,” Ms. Weingarten said on Wednesday. “What right-wing extremists understand is what Americans understand: that public schools are foundational.”“Right-wing extremists have said that the way to universal vouchers is to create universal distrust,” Ms. Weingarten added. Enrollment numbers across the country, however, tell a different story about whose policies are fomenting distrust and decline in public schools.As school districts struggle to recover from pandemic enrollment losses, schools in Republican districts are making up ground faster than those in Democratic ones. “Enrollment rebounds fell along partisan lines,” the AEI report says. “In 2021–22, most districts that voted for Donald Trump rebounded, while enrollment continued to fall in districts that voted for Joe Biden.”A scholar from the conservative think tank, Nat Malkus, analyzed enrollment data from more than 15,000 school districts across the country.Republican and Democratic districts experienced similar enrollment drops at the outset of the pandemic — 2.7 percent for Trump-supporting ones, and 3 percent for Biden-voting districts. In the second year of the pandemic, however, red districts were gaining students, with enrollment back to 2 percent below pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, blue districts were losing even more students — for a cumulative enrollment loss of 3.8 percent.Mr. Malkus argues that enrollment loss is correlated to the length of school shutdowns and mask mandates. School districts with the longest remote-instruction periods and longest-running mask mandates saw the greatest enrollment declines. Districts that never instituted mask mandates lost the fewest students.Among voters, faith is waning in Democratic education policy. Recent polls have shown that Republicans are gaining a foothold on the issue after decades of Democrats’ dominance on the issue.A pollster advising Ms. Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers recommended that to regain voter trust, Democrats should focus on “reminding voters that the Republican strategy of politicizing schools is undermining our children’s education.”

Enrollment Rebounds in Republican School Districts, Declines in Democratic Ones

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