Public school districts across the nation are struggling with declining enrollment, leading school authorities to consider cutting back staff or consolidating schools, an education news outlet reported earlier this month.
According to K-12 Dive, the public school enrollment problem stems from falling birthrates and the expansion of school choice programs that many states have undertaken in recent years. The outlet provided data on several states and districts’ public school enrollment, noting that the trend is consistent across the country. Districts in many states, including Alabama, Illinois, Maryland, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, are seeing fewer and fewer students.
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In Alabama, public school enrollment dropped 0.8% between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, reportedly the largest enrollment drop in 40 years. According to K-12 Dive, Alabama State Superintendent of Education Eric Mackey said a contributing element is a new voucher program that helps pay for private school, while Alabama superintendents have said that deportations seem to be another factor influencing a decline in school enrollment.
Continuing a years-long downward trend, West Virginia’s enrollment tanked 1.7% between 2023 and 2024, in what K-12 Dive called “one of the largest public school enrollment drops in the nation.” Coupled with school vouchers and other factors, public school closures across the state are becoming the norm.
In Wisconsin, preliminary data suggest that the number of students in public schools fell nearly 6% from 2024-25 to 2025-26. K-12 Dive reported that State Rep. Amanda Nedweski, a Republican, has said districts will soon need to consolidate.
The outlet cited an analysis from the Illinois Policy Institute that found that more than one in three desks are empty in the Chicago Public Schools district, and the district faced a $734 million budget deficit.
As K-12 Dive reported, any attempts to downsize the district’s costs are limited by a recently renewed contract with the Chicago Teachers Union, which promises new hires.
Finally, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland saw a roughly 1.7% decrease between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, and the district estimates that its public school population will fall even more in the next six years.
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