Hacker News Reader

Comment by gjsman-1000 | Hacker News Reader

Yes... but one million students, what percentage surge would that be in private schools if they all ended up there? I think it would have to be much larger, especially considering many private schools don't have that much additional capacity. (Edit: Also considering marginalized groups are the most likely to drop out... they are the least likely to afford private schools.)

I strongly suspect many students have just completely fallen off the radar. Who knows what will happen to them.

View on HN

The private school my kids attend grew like 20%.

I think there are enough private schools to handle much of this.

And homeschooling is not “fallen off the radar” either.

But I don’t doubt some have fallen off the radar.

Also anecdotally, I don't think truancy enforcement has been particularly strict during the pandemic. I know our school has given a lot of grace to students going on vacation, etc compared to pre-pandemic.

> many private schools don't have that much additional capacity

In terms of teachers, maybe not, but in terms of facilities, any school that was around in the 70s-80s should have plenty of classrooms and lockers. And I imagine that as public schools shrink, there will be teachers looking at those jobs.

The public schools around here are having a serious staffing crisis because wages, which were already low and stagnant for years, didn't go up as wage inflation hit the rest of the economy, and teachers are sick of the whole thing and burnt out, so are leaving. There's a big "leave for literally anywhere else—you'll be better-paid, less stressed, and more-respected" movement among teachers right now, because all that's more-or-less true.

It’s crazy that people respond to incentives.

Even then, households that choose to homeschool or private school their children still contribute to public schools. So the article's claim of needing to close schools due to fewer pupils and lack of funding is left unanswered. There may be migration involved.

Federal & state funding is often tied to student attendance.

Every state manages school fundig differently, and within states, it can vary, too. But in California, most districts are funded by the state, and the funding formula is based on attendence (and details about the student population). Some districts opt to get their funding directly from local property taxes which don't vary by attendance, but most districts get more funding by accepting the state funding and choose that instead.

If public school attendence goes down in such a system, the school districts (and therefore the schools) get less funding, but tax collection probably doesn't change. Instead there will be a surplus in the general fund. California has a lot of formulaic budget requirements, so if attendence dropped enough, it might derail the rest of the budget, but I'm not familiar with how close to the requirements the school budget tracks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com