Public schools across the nation are suffering from a decline in student population. This is particularly true in blue cities and states.

“Currently, 380 schools — nearly 25% of all city schools — already operate below 60% capacity,” Manhattan Institute fellow Danyela Souza Egorov found after deep-diving into the situation in New York City’s school system. For example, one school employed 21 people for only 28 students in attendance.

There are several fascinating aspects of this story.

First, why are there so few students enrolled in public schools? In New York City, 3,500 fewer pre-K and kindergarten students enrolled in 2025. This is partly indicative of the culture of death that prevails in Democrat-run jurisdictions. Women either aren’t having babies, or they are largely aborting the ones they are blessed with. Children are viewed as nuisances and distractions from more important things like partying, brunch, and getting ahead professionally.

Second, blue cities are taxing the stuffing out of their populations, and residents are reflexively fleeing in droves. Fewer families mean fewer children enrolling in public schools.

Third, there is the issue of immigration. Blue cities opened up their schools to migrant children, which bloated the student census. Under President Donald Trump, those children are either no longer attending schools because their families are scared of the Democrat-induced narrative that ICE agents will literally raid classrooms, or they have immigrated back to their home countries.

Fourth and finally, there is a rising tide of families choosing to homeschool. In many big-city schools, students are way behind academically and unable to get enough help or attention, and/or teachers are too busy trying to manage poor behavior to get any actual teaching done. In response, parents are pulling their kids out because they want them to learn and succeed, which is just not happening often enough in public schools.

Homeschooling has been steadily growing since the shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Admissionly, a website that monitors educational trends, “In September 2024, there were about 4.2 million children homeschooled in the United States, representing 7.6% of the school-age population.”

Another fascinating aspect of this story concerns money. Even though many public schools are failing and shrinking, the government is still throwing money at them. In New York City, running these empty schools as if they were full costs taxpayers $388 million annually.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is constantly asking for money, so why not make the necessary budget cuts here? Why are district officials wasting taxpayer dollars by not consolidating public schools or by not funding charter schools, which actually are succeeding?

Admittedly, part of the problem is that many parents are resistant to change. Their reasons range from logistics to location (i.e., moving to inconvenient parts of town). The most obvious culprit, however, is the government dragging its heels and failing to do what is fiscally responsible for taxpayers.

All in all, the emptying of schools is a classic self-inflicted trap. The Left preaches anti-family, anti-capitalist, pro-woke indoctrination, all while continuing to throw gobs of money at failing systems. Money can’t fix what they smashed to smithereens.