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As families head back to school this fall, there is a growing story behind the back-to-school ritual that the educational elites don’t want to talk about — empty classrooms, shuttered buildings, and a public school enrollment collapse that is accelerating in Democrat-controlled states.
In California, seventy-nine public schools closed in 2025, with another seventy-three closing so far this year. In Illinois, seventy-two public schools have shuttered in the past five years. Among Illinois districts with at least a thousand students, three hundred forty-five out of three hundred ninety-seven saw enrollment declines between 2019 and 2025. That’s a total loss of more than one hundred thirty-six thousand students in six years, all on the watch of Governor JB Pritzker, who is eyeing a presidential run.
Democrat-run New York, California, and Illinois together account for forty-four percent of the total decline in public school enrollment nationwide since 2019. On the other hand, nine of the ten states that saw enrollment increases or held steady are conservative states — Idaho, Alabama, Texas, and Florida among them. As parents vote with their feet, the map shift is not subtle.
Part of what is driving families out the door is the lack of teaching they find in the classroom. As we’ve reported before, screen time has replaced actual teaching in far too many schools. Eighty-eight percent of public schools are still providing a computer to every student. CNN recently reported on a middle school social studies teacher who did not teach a single lesson the entire year — just computer-based exercises from bell to bell. It’s little wonder that chronic absenteeism runs at fourteen percent in fifth grade and climbs all the way to thirty-two percent by twelfth grade. When school offers little more than a screen, many students stop showing up entirely.
The good news is that alternatives are growing where policy allows them to. Texas launched its Education Freedom Account program this month — offering ten thousand five hundred dollars per student annually for private school and two thousand dollars for homeschooling. More than two hundred and seventy-four thousand students applied. The demand for alternative schooling and programs is very real.
Parents know what their children need, and the system is failing to provide it. Empty classrooms and closing schools in blue states aren’t a mystery, they’re a judgement call from parents.
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