LETTER: The real reason CCSD enrollment is dropping
A couple weeks ago there was a story about declining enrollments in the Clark County School District (“School year starts with positive view”). It included a particular statistic that graduating classes were about 24,000 and new kindergarten classes were only 16,000. An administrator stated the reason for the decline was a decline in fertility rates.
Wait a minute. It’s true that fertility rates have unfortunately been declining but not by one-third. Most of the decline in enrollment has occurred because parents are voting with their feet and choosing alternative schooling for their offspring whether it be charter, private, or homeschooling. Much of that was brought on by the school closures of the COVID years, but there’s also a growing dissatisfaction with the dismal results of monopolized public education, dominated by the teachers union and a certain party in the legislature.