Saturday, October 21, 2017

Chicago Public Schools Lose 21,000 students from its rolls in the last two years

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Chicago Public Schools on Friday announced another five-figure enrollment drop, counting 371,000 students in the country’s third largest school district.

District officials also released school ratings, blaming the Cubs in part for a dip of schools with the top rating, and named four privately-managed schools that aren’t performing well enough to stay open past June.

CPS has lost about 21,000 students from its rolls in the last two years and now has just about 26,000 more students than the fourth largest, Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida. District-run schools serve 289,506 students and privately-managed charter schools account for about 62,435 according to a count taken earlier this month, on the 20th day of school.

The school system has a few hundred more white and Asian students than last year but lost 6,300 African-American children and about 3,700 Hispanic students. The city’s population has been shrinking, notably in black neighborhoods.

The city’s high schools continue to shrink, with more than 20 high schools enrolling fewer than 50 freshmen, four of those enrolling fewer than 20 ninth graders.

CEO Forrest Claypool attributed some of the loss to lower birth rates and immigration rates overall.
The exodus out of government schools continues....