My former boss, close friend, and principal of the school where I was school counselor for seven years texted me last week. She wanted me to know my former school district was closing up to twenty schools. She and I, and our mutual friend, another former school counselor, are sad and disheartened by the news.

We aren’t the only ones. Parents have flooded school board meetings. They presented petitions and asked pointed questions at a public meeting where the potential closures were explained.

Twenty schools is a lot of schools, even in a city the size of Fort Worth. Why so many?

Tracy Richter, a consultant at HPM reported at the recent public meeting that enrollment has declined by 13,000 students in the last five years.

Contrastingly, North Hi Mount, one of the threatened schools, reports an over-enrollment by 160%. Rather than build an annex for the overflow, the plan recommends closing the school and consolidating enrollment into two other school. Why this school? Because the school only has 400 students.

I’m not privy to all the planning and logic that goes into closing schools, but having worked at FWISD, and having sent my son to school there for thirteen years, I do understand the agony of the parents and children whose schools may close.

Why has enrollment in public schools throughout the U.S. dropped?

Why is there a decline in enrollment in public schools in Fort Worth by 13,000, and overall declines in public schools throughout the nation?

The share of children ages 5 to 17 enrolled in public schools fell by almost 4 percentage points from 2012 to 2022, an NBC News analysis of Census Bureau data found, even as the overall population grew.

I have some facts, some history, and a theory about the decline in public school enrollment. What is happening when the share of children ages 5 to 17 enrolled in public schools fell by almost 4 percentage points from 2021 to 2022, even as the overall population grew?

First, we had white flight. Public schools survived, but struggled during integration when white families left schools and neighborhoods when segregated schools were integrated under Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Right out of college, I taught in a historically Black middle school shortly after schools in Texas were integrated. Texas waited over fifteen years to comply after the Supreme Court decision to integrate schools.

White flight from Morningside Middle School wasn’t an issue, as white children were bussed into our school. Other schools, predominantly white, did suffer from white flight during that time. White children in my city, as well as in other large cities throughout the nation, left and continue to leave public schools.

Fort Worth’s neighbor to the east, Dallas, saw public school enrollment drop dramatically during the early days of integration. It continues into the farther flung suburbs today. By 2014, there were more school age children in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex than in previous years, but fewer white children enrolled in urban public schools.

Many of these “missing” students from public schools transferred to private schools. Some are homeschooled. Others are in Charter schools.

Homeschooling began cutting more deeply into enrollment in public schools in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I saw the beginning of the exodus as a school counselor when parents came to me to discuss home schooling options and requirements, and, alternatively, which Charter schools were best.

Having long been a supporter of and participator in public schools, this was difficult for me. I saw public schools as one of the last bastions against privilege, and places for children to learn with and about others who don’t look like them. I saw and still see public schools as places civics and social responsibility should be taught.

I didn’t dissuade these parents, but I did ask the hard questions. What about socialization? Does the curriculum offer more than the basics? Things such as art, music, history and civics? Are the subjects taught with or without bias?

The movement toward home-schooling, Charter and private schools is gaining even more ground now as the right has pushed consistently for school vouchers. Vouchers give parents money to use toward private or charter schools. A Texas Senate committee recently passed SB 2.

“SB 2 would also prompt the creation of an education savings account (ESA) program, which would distribute the following funds:

• $10,000 per year for each student who attends an accredited private school.
• $11,500 per year for each student who attends an accredited private school with a disability.
• $2,000 per year for each student who is homeschooled, to use on qualifying educational expenses.”

The ESA program would be created by dipping into tax dollars designated for public school education.

The average private school cost per year in Texas is $11,340, and ranges between $1,170 and $40,000. The vouchers don’t cover the cost of supplies, uniforms, school lunches or other miscellaneous costs.

Rural schools, in particular, can be hurt by voucher programs. There are few private schools in rural areas, and yet the money allocated for vouchers pulls tax money away from all public schools, including rural ones.

In Texas, Democrats are leading the fight for public schools

Republican senators in Texas removed from the bill a proposal from Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio. He proposed to hold school districts harmless for funds lost to students who left their campus to take an SB 2-supported program for three years.

While state legislatures nationwide are working ot pass school choice programs, public schools — already dealing with declining enrollment — have faced budget cuts, teacher shortages, laws over what is taught in the classroom, fights over the banning of library books, and the proposed cancelling of free breakfast programs by the current Administration.

Why are Republicans and others on the right determined to decimate public schools? We can only guess at some of the motives. However, this fight has been going on since 1954 and the Brown v Board of Education ruling. Which gives us some idea that this is primarily about race and racism.

Along with racism, there seems to be a movement toward an uneducated populace. An uneducated populace is easy to control. If a populace can’t be kept completely uneducated, what is the next best thing?

To control information and what is taught. Both in private schools by prescribed curriculum, and by laundering public school textbooks of legitimate history.

Public schools in the U.S. were established for the opposite reason: to develop an educated populace.

The Center for Education Policy describes the history of U.S. public education.

“Public schools were established to ensure an educated populace who could understand civics, political and social life, and be able to vote with knowledge to protect rights and freedoms, and to avoid tyrants and demagogues.” — CEP

How are we doing so far??

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This post was previously published on Age of Awareness.

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