High California Housing Costs Mean Less Children in Public Schools

The L.A. Times reports:

In the 2005-06 school year, statewide school enrollment dropped for the first time in 24 years. There were 6,313,103 pupils enrolled, a decline of about 10,000 from the previous year, according to state Department of Education records.

State officials aren't sure whether the trend will continue. Projections had called for continued student growth through at least 2010, said Donna Rothenbaum, a spokeswoman in the education department's demographics unit. She said several factors could contribute, including local job losses, changes in migration patterns and lower fertility rates. But a major trigger, analysts say, is the state's sky-high housing market.

Student losses appear to be highest in high-cost coastal regions, especially around Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Housing prices in those regions are among the highest in the state, analysts note.

At ABC Unified, based in Cerritos, enrollment has dropped by 1,000 students over the last five years, officials said.

In Orange County, Fountain Valley schools are losing 60 to 100 students a year. Similar declines have been recorded in Ojai and Oak Park school districts in Ventura County.

In Sacramento, San Juan Unified School District is closing schools because of decreased enrollment, Rothenbaum said.

"It wasn't that long ago that we couldn't build schools fast enough," said Hans Johnson, a demographer at the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California. "Now we've switched to which schools to close."

Artificially high real estate prices means less children.California doesn't want a middle class:so it will have less children.These numbers undoubtedly count illegals,so the situation is even worse than it appears.Even with the flood of illegals,California can't maintain its public school population.