U.S. Schools Face a Crisis as the Number of Children Drops(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
U.S. Schools Face a Crisis as the Number of Children Drops
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/upshot/public-schools-enrollment-crisis.html
14 comments
Because people don't want to have kids in a sad, unsafe, uncertain, unaffordable country without a safety net like universal healthcare that hollowed out the middle class and brought massive inequality by disastrous tax cuts and neoliberal policies.
Clamping down on immigration will go down as one of the greatest policy blunders in US history. The American people are about to find out the hard way that national economies are essentially pyramid schemes.
It is better to stop pyramid scheme earlier than later.
Yeah, I am generally viscerally horrified by the procedures of ICE/CBP but I am still somewhat disgusted by liberals counterargument that we need immigrants to do jobs that are beneath us.
Nothing is beneath us, except what's beneath everyone.
Nothing is beneath us, except what's beneath everyone.
Yes and, very little of the billions in AI spend seems to be aimed at boring, dangerous, or low-paying jobs.
Wishcasting. The US could let in tens of millions of immigrants in a single year.
Are property taxes going down in those areas? How much does a house cost for a young working couple looking to start a family to move into?
> “People are choosing to raise kids somewhere other than in the city — moving to suburbs or places where they have access to affordable housing,” she said. “So it’s not just about losing students, it’s about the city of Portland losing families.”
All of the schools seem to be in metro areas where there are probably opportunities for consolidation.
> Even some affluent school districts that draw families because of high-performing schools, like in Palo Alto, Calif., and Montclair, N.J., have struggled to maintain enrollment.
The affluent in these places don't send their kids to public schools and Montclair public schools are in a gigantic financial scandal anyway.
> “People are choosing to raise kids somewhere other than in the city — moving to suburbs or places where they have access to affordable housing,” she said. “So it’s not just about losing students, it’s about the city of Portland losing families.”
All of the schools seem to be in metro areas where there are probably opportunities for consolidation.
> Even some affluent school districts that draw families because of high-performing schools, like in Palo Alto, Calif., and Montclair, N.J., have struggled to maintain enrollment.
The affluent in these places don't send their kids to public schools and Montclair public schools are in a gigantic financial scandal anyway.
Areas and institutions that lean Democratic politically. Plus a few GOP areas with long-running demographic decline.