Falling California school enrollment calls for shake-ups, not bailouts

Who knew the 3 R’s might include “relocation”?

Enrollment is tumbling in many large California school districts — a trend on pace to accelerate.

The California Post reported this week that Fresno Unified School District — the state’s third-largest — continues to lose students at a rapid clip.

The California Post reported this week that Fresno Unified School District continues to lose students at a rapid clip. Google Maps

The district of more than 70,000 pupils has shed about 4,000 students in the past decade, with 4,000 more projected to leave in the next few years.

That translates to the loss of about seven or eight average-size Fresno schools’ worth of kids.

Red alert.

As Fresno and other districts grapple with declining student numbers and rising budget shortfalls, they should reform and right-size their operations –– not demand bailouts from taxpayers.

Mao Misty Her is the superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District. Fresno Unified School District

This may mean school closures, operational consolidations and reductions to administration and staff.

It also means pushing back against unions — such as the voracious United Teachers Los Angeles — that press for (and often secure) far richer payouts than districts can realistically afford.

Districts in LA, San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco and Long Beach are all among those bleeding students.

Many districts, including Fresno’s, blame the declines on slipping birth rates, families fleeing high-cost areas, lower rates of foreign immigration, and competition from charter schools, private schools and home schooling.

Given these trends, school boards need to reconfigure operations to be sustainable.

They should also consider why they’re losing students to charters, private schools and parent-teachers.

The likely culprit: declining trust in schools that deprioritize policing — and by extension, student safety — while producing poor academic outcomes. 

In recent statewide testing, 48.8% of students scored “proficient” in English and just 37.3% showed a proficient grip of math.

And in the large districts shedding enrollment? Mostly, the numbers are even worse.

It’s time for another R: a reality check.

In many of the state’s large school districts, the status quo is earning a D or an F.

Enrollment collapse, where it exists, should spark reform, ingenuity and recalibration — not requests for more tax dollars, tossed into a black hole.