The exodus of families from government schools continues to accelerate nationwide, sparking panic among the education establishment that has so badly failed America’s children. And the trends are not just because of COVID, contrary to government claims.
Now, public-school bigwigs are freaking out about what the plunge in enrollment means for their bloated taxpayer-funded budgets. In short: The government-“education” gravy train is about to get a lot smaller as sensible families flee to the safe sanctuary of homeschooling and private schools.
The numbers are huge. Massachusetts public schools lost almost 40,000 students this fall. New York public schools lost over 30,000. Fairfax County, Virginia, lost almost 10,000, while the the Los Angeles Unified School District lost 11,000. Some districts have lost over 10 percent. Enrollment at colleges and universities dropped by more than 15 percent over 2019 levels. And the exodus continues to grow.
Countless government-school officials are warning — falsely — that the looming declines in their budgets will supposedly hurt children. If and when the pandemic ends, they claim, there will be a rush to re-enroll children. However, the facts, data, and trends suggest the exodus will keep picking up steam with or without coronavirus.
Consider that while government-school advocates are frantically trying to blame COVID19 for the fleeing families, many of the trends were actually being observed long before the virus struck.
In Massachusetts, for example, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents reported a 5 percent decrease in enrollment since coronavirus. However, the ongoing exodus began well before COVID shut down schools.
“It may be the virus, or it may be a real systemic issue that we’re seeing some significant drop of pre-K students coming into the district,” Worcester School Committee member Jack Foley was quoted as saying by local media reports.
Despite efforts to portray the exodus as solely a response to COVID and the limitations of virtual learning, the reality is that there is much more to the story. FreedomProject Academy, an online school affiliated with FreedomProject Media, has hit new records and saw an explosion of growth during COVID — and it is all virtual.
One of the key issues is growing awareness about the dangers of “public education” to children. With government schools becoming increasingly radical in the indoctrination and sexualization of America’s youth, the movement to liberate children and families from the nightmare has gone from the fringes to mainstream in recent years.
Many of America’s most prominent and respected leaders have urged parents to ditch government schools. Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, for instance, who is heard by close to 20 million listeners each day, has repeatedly called on his audience to protect their children from public “education” by getting them out. In response to the LGBT extremism in New Jersey, evangelical leader Franklin Graham also urged parents to get their children out.
Even President Trump, who has the fervent support of perhaps 100 million Americans or more, has repeatedly emphasized the need to protect children from “failing government schools.” During his Independence Day speech at Mt. Rushmore, the president even pointed out — correctly — that the mayhem in America’s streets was a direct result of indoctrination by government schools.
According to a recent report in the New York Times on the exodus from public schools, enrollment in private schools is actually up, too. And as The Newman Report reported recently, the number of homeschool families has more than doubled just since last year, with more than 10 percent of all families with school-age children now educating them at home.
Families are doing the right thing by fleeing the government indoctrination system posing as an “education” system. However, as the exodus picks up speed, educational totalitarians will do everything possible to crush the movement and the freedom that enables it. Advocates of educational liberty must be prepared for the coming war.
This article originally appeared at FreedomProject Media and is reprinted here with permission.
