What do parents want? Public schools are competing for students

Public schools are scrambling to fill empty seats, reports Dana Goldstein in the New York Times. "A decline in the number of babies being born and a boom in private school vouchers and home-schooling have combined to create an enrollment crisis for public education."

Students at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School in Orlando, Florida

Some are paying recruiters such as Caissa K12 to bring in students. "The monopoly is over," says Brian J. Stephens, the company founder.

Florida has the nation’s largest school voucher program, known as a universal education savings account, Goldstein writes. Seventy-one percent of children attend a district school, "but that share has rapidly declined as enrollment in charter schools, home-schooling and private education increases."

Orange County, Fla., home to Orlando, expects a drop in kindergarteners, which means a drop in state funding. It's hired Caissa K12 to persuade parents to give district schools a chance. Recruiters visited "garden apartments with children's bikes parked out front," a homeless shelter and a church preschool, writes Goldstein. They touted the district's arts and career programs.

At an Orlando playground, "almost all the parents said they were considering something other than their zoned public school," writes Goldstein. "Many mentioned academic rigor."

Jasmine Robinson, a 36-year-old photographer, was in the process of moving her 6-year-old, Arden, from public to private school using a voucher, because Arden had announced, “I’m bored.” When the mother visited the private school, she saw first graders learning fractions.

Orange County Superintendent Maria Vazquez, the superintendent, plans to offer à la carte classes to homeschoolers in exchange for voucher dollars. She's also considering creating more K-8 or 6-12 schools to appeal to parents and "investigating whether the district can start its own microschools built around themes attractive to parents, such as screen-free education."

Choice options are expanding in "red" states," writes Goldstein. In July, "President Trump signed into law the first national voucher program, funded by a federal tax credit. Some Democrats are urging their own party to reconsider private school choice, arguing that vouchers appeal to working-class voters."

Black Mothers Forums is opening more microschools.

Arizona public schools are closing, as parents choose other options, writes Laura Meckler in the Washington Post. "Arizona has embraced market competition as a central tenet of its K-12 education system, offering parents an extraordinary opportunity to choose and shape their children’s education using tax dollars, and developing a national reputation as the Wild West of schooling."

"The state has supported a robust charter school system, tax money for home schooling and expansive private school vouchers, which are available to all families regardless of income," she writes. Only 75 percent of students attend a district school.

In South Phoenix, the low-scoring Roosevelt district competes with 21 charter schools, Meckler writes. "More than 800 students living in the district receive money for private, parochial or home schooling through the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program, the main voucher program. Additional children benefit from a second voucher program." Roosevelt is shrinking from 18 schools to 13.

The district "did not listen to their clients, which is their students and their families,” said Rev. Janelle Wood. “When you’re not listening … at some point they stop talking and they start walking.”

Her group, Black Mothers Forums, began offering microschools during the pandemic. The programs provide "coaches" to help otherwise homeschooled students with lessons. Parents pay $6,000 tuition, using state voucher money,