Report: Traditional public school enrollments down, charter schools gaining

Charter schools continue to attract more students amid a decline in government-run public schools, a new report reveals.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) released a report on Oct. 8 tracking public school enrollment trends between 2019 and 2024: Of the 44 states with data available, most saw gains in charter enrollment and losses in traditional public schools.

“Parents were not happy with their kids not being in school and that dissatisfaction led them to become really quick studies on what other options were available for them,” said Debbie Veney, NAPCS’s senior vice president of communications and marketing.

“You’re looking now at the impact of parents becoming hyper-engaged in what their choices are in public education.”

The overall five-year trend was an 11.68% increase for charters (representing 392,000 students) and a 3.89% decrease for government schools (representing 1.75 million students).

Some of the states with the most impressive charter growth included Alabama (467%), Iowa (228%), Mississippi (69%), New Hampshire (34%), South Carolina (36%), Washington (61%) and Wyoming (59%).

NAPCS also analyzed enrollment data for black and Hispanic students and found similar trends:  Over the past five years, over 50,000 black students enrolled in a charter for the first time, while almost 220,000 left their government-run school.

Additionally, more than 200,000 Hispanic students enrolled in charter schools.

“We’re just living in a different time where people realize a lot more of their own agency and decision-making abilities,” Veney continued. “They used to think that they had to just settle for whatever was given to them, whatever was the school that they were zoned to attend … and people generally don’t believe that anymore.”

Previous research has also found charter students significantly outperform their traditional public school counterparts in academic achievement.  

Students are also leaving public education altogether, enrolling in Christian schools or homeschooling.