Analysis: Media handwringing over homeless students downplays ‘implosion of California public-school education’

Lance Christensen of the California Policy Center typically characterizes EdSource as the state’s “foremost publication on educational issues.”

However, one of his X posts took issue with the focus of a recent article lamenting the increase in students identifying as homeless statewide.

“The lede was not that homelessness had increased,” the center’s vice president of government affairs and education policy told The Lion. “It was that our schools – for the seventh year straight – have lost upwards of 420,000 kids.”

This demographic disappearance of nearly half a million children foretells a systemic crisis for a state wrestling with high housing costs and schools failing to educate, Christensen argues. 

“We’re seeing the implosion of California public-school education in real time. And I don’t think the Legislature, the governor, superintendent of public instruction or any of the powers that be are really paying that much attention.” 

‘Homeless industrial complex’ 

Although EdSource found the number of homeless students had risen by 9% for the 2024-25 school year, Christensen expresses skepticism over the self-reported data. 

“It’s not like there’s some substantiated definition (of homelessness), and some of this data can be very situational,” he explained. “For instance, a kid has had a family problem or whatever. Maybe they’re in transition, so maybe they are ‘homeless’ for a period of time. They’re not really homeless. They might be living with a grandmother or an aunt or a neighbor, and it’s not a stable home, so that’s a part of it.” 

Christensen also pointed out financial incentives for schools to identify an ever-increasing number of homeless students. 

“If you say these kids are homeless, then the next imperative in California is to build housing for homeless students, bringing more money into the school districts that wouldn’t ordinarily be there,” he said. “It’s all about money, power and control.” 

Longtime observers criticize what they see as an ongoing narrative of “there’s all these homeless and we need to throw more money at the problem,” Christensen argues. 

“This homeless industrial complex we have in California has to constantly find a way to keep itself relevant,” he concluded, noting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spending over $24 billion on homelessness initiatives. 

“We have a major homelessness tax called Proposition 63,” he said of the Mental Health Services Act, approved in 2004 and raising taxes on personal income above $1 million. “None of that stuff has been working.” 

The state’s laws – including the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA – are throttling the construction of new houses, according to Christensen. 

“You also have to build a certain amount of low-income housing, which increases the cost of everybody else’s housing. And then you find out this low-income housing is really not low income, it’s kind of high income. So long story short is California has made it impossible to build more houses.” 

Problems with ‘in loco parentis’ 

Christensen also takes issue with schools taking over responsibilities formerly recognized as belonging solely to parents. 

“Most families send their kids to school either with or without lunches without much discussion these days,” he said of the state providing universal school lunches – and in many districts, universal breakfasts. “It’s a weird conversation every day with the kids. It’s like, ‘Are you going to eat school lunch or not?’ as opposed to spending time debating sack lunches versus lunch money.” 

This uncertainty translates into schools wasting resources on pre-purchasing perishable food that may or may not be eaten, he noted. 

As part of the meal service, schools ask families to reveal how much money their household makes. 

“My wife and I refuse to fill out forms disclosing our income because we don’t want to be part of the system that perpetuates this ‘free things, free stuff’ mentality,” Christensen said, adding this issue extends into the state’s so-called community school model. 

“You have a narrative out there that these families are homeless and they can’t take care of basic needs and these kids need dental or eye care or basic physical exams, or whatever – most schools are going into this model,” he explains. 

“That sounds all good on a brochure, but it’s pretty insidious because what it’s actually doing is dividing the parents and their parental duties – their rights and responsibilities – from their kids and giving it to the schools.” 

Christensen views this as an extension of “in loco parentis,” a legal concept where people or organizations take on parental functions and duties. 

“California schools are not doing the thing they were supposed to do, which is teach kids. They now have become basically warehouses for young kids – and childcare centers for most families – incidentally teaching academics from time to time.” 

Meanwhile, too many students are failing to achieve even basic academic outcomes. Fewer than half of the state’s students attained English language arts proficiency in the 2023-24 school year, and only 35.5% could meet math standards, according to government data. 

“These are not the schools of the 1980s and 90s,” Christensen said. “They’re fundamentally different, and they don’t educate like they did in years past.” 

‘Hemorrhaging kids’ 

Against this backdrop, a massive exodus has occurred within the public-school system. 

“Usually, you have more kindergarteners and 1st graders than you have seniors in high school,” Christensen said of data from the state’s department of education. 

“If you look at the demographics, the number of the kids in kindergarten is stunningly a lot smaller than it should be. And I don’t think that portends a good thing.” 

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Unified School District – the largest school district statewide and second-largest in the nation – has shrunk by half over 20 years, according to Christensen. 

“Places like San Francisco are hemorrhaging kids. Certain cities can’t keep schools open or literally are closing a school a year, if not more.” 

Christensen credits the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns for alerting parents to systemic failures within the public-school model. 

“When parents think about this, they want their children to be successful in real life,” he said. “They might appreciate they have free babysitting with these schools. But these kids are sent away for 6-8, maybe more, hours a day. They’re basically being warehoused. They’re put on a conveyor belt and moved through the system, so a lot more parents are saying, ‘No, we’re done.’”