Total enrollment at Wisconsin's public and charter schools declined by 25,000 students from fall 2019 to fall 2020 and has continued to fall in the years since then. While declining birth rates and apparent movement of some students to private or home schools likely account for at least two thirds of the decline, somewhere between 0.5% and 1.2% of…

Private school choice programs are publicly-funded programs that provide families with funding to attend a private school of their choice. Since 2021, 15 states have enacted or expanded choice legislation, even making homeschoolers eligible to participate. However, homeschoolers are often reluctant to participate due to proposed regulations. We…

In this first installment of the series on state-level policy and microschooling, the authors explain Idaho's recent legislative debate over two competing approaches to supporting the creation of small learning communities, known as microschools. Idaho's strong homeschooling community and its low-enrollment rural districts create political…

The 15th annual "Education Next" survey, conducted in June 2021, yields a host of specific results that reveal one large fact about the current state of public opinion on American education: The public is cautious--extremely cautious. In the presence of a still-circulating COVID-19 virus, a large percentage of parents and the broader…

Since 2007, the Cowen Institute has conducted annual polls on perceptions of public education in New Orleans. These polls have served to provide insight on how parents, guardians, and the general public feel about the most relevant issues related to New Orleans' highly decentralized K-12 public education system. In previous editions of the poll,…

Recent headlines describing the national drop in public school enrollment suggest that this is a shocking crisis brought on or worsened by the pandemic. However, Abbie Cohen argues that the current enrollment decline should not be a surprise. The underlying causes have festered for decades. Among these causes is the tension between the different…

America has a long history of small-school environments, such as one-room schoolhouses and homeschools. But in recent years, other models have developed, giving students more intimate settings for learning and enabling their families to play a larger role in their schooling. Microschools are a leading example of this growing sector that also…

This poll was conducted between June 15-June 21, 2022 among a sample of 2,198 adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. Among the key findings are: (1) School parents were much more likely in June than in May to…

This poll was conducted between November 10-14, 2022 among a sample of 2,200 adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. Among the key findings are: (1) In November, economic issues dominated voting priorities at the…

The 2019 edition of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is the 55th in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The purpose of the "Digest" is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. It contains data on a variety of…