Back to Empty Classrooms |
The annual back-to-school ritual this year is happening amid a rash of school closures due to empty classrooms. In California, 79 public schools closed in 2025, and, so far this year, 73 public schools have already closed.
This same pattern is occurring in other Democrat-controlled states. In Illinois, for example, 72 Illinois public schools have closed in the past five years, despite a moratorium on school closures in Chicago; among the 397 Illinois districts having at least 1,000 students, there was an enrollment decline in 345 of them between 2019 and 2025.
Led by the potential Democrat presidential candidate Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois public schools lost 136,000 students during that six-year period. Charter schools, which the Democrats limit mostly to their constituents in Chicago, have also seen an enrollment decline as many families have moved away from the state and its liberal policies.
California’s San Jose Unified public school district has lost 22 percent of its enrollment since 2015-16, and has closed five schools entirely. Enrollment in the Los Angeles Unified has fallen by 17,000 kids in just one year, while closing or consolidating 14 public schools due to the declining number of students.
The Democrat-controlled states of New York, California, and Illinois comprise a total of 44 percent of the total decline in public-school enrollment nationwide since........