California’s declining school enrollment doesn’t justify $15 billion Proposition 13 school bond

Declining school enrollment may have an enormous impact on California’s proposed $15 billion school construction bond, Proposition 13, on the March 3 ballot. 

California Department of Education’s data show total K-12 enrollment has been dropping for several years. 

And the Department of Finance projects further loss of 258,000 kids by 2027-28.

Most of that decline will be concentrated in the six Southern California counties from Ventura to San Diego as well as in Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley.

Nearly one out of every four California students attend school in Los Angeles County where enrollment is projected to drop by 10.8% by the 2027-28 school year. That is a loss of 161,000 students.

The Central Valley is expected to have spotty growth, probably due to lower housing costs and room for more urban sprawl. Kern County is expected to add over 11,000 students. But nearby Tulare County is projected have 6,000 fewer kids by 2027-28.

Further north, Contra Costa, Sacramento and Fresno Counties will each add about 5,000 and Stanislaus County should grow by 3,000 students.

With current staffing levels, California’s projected enrollment loss will eliminate the need for about 1,000 teachers and 1,000 classrooms and hundreds of non-classroom employees. 

We simply are no longer having enough babies to fill the empty desks in many school districts. The number of babies born in the state has plummeted from 566,000 in 2007 to just to just 452,000 in 2018.

A Department of Finance demographer noted fewer people are arriving from Mexico, which has a high birth rate, and more are coming from China, which has a lower birth rate. 

California’s high cost of housing, combined with massive student loans, may be forcing young people to delay having children simply because they cannot afford them.

The new state bond proposes directing $6 billion to community colleges, California State University and University of California. Their demographic forecasts look slightly better as kids from the baby boom era are either in the higher grades in K-12 schools or already in college. 

The Department of Finance projects the number of high school graduates, potential college students, will only decline by about 4,000 by 2027-28.

Claims of “soaring enrollment” have been a core argument for virtually every school bond proposed in recent decades. 

Supporters of the $15 billion bond probably hope that assumption is still planted in the minds of voters since we have approved five school construction bonds since 1998.

But California’s new reality is that we ran out of beachfront property years ago and are apparently entering a new era with little population growth. The state’s declining birth rate, and declining school enrollment, may create a truly difficult path to victory for this new bond in March.

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Mark Fulmer is retired deputy superintendent at Kern County Schools, mfulmer2018@gmail.com. Jerrold Jensen is a retired marketing manager and data analyst, jensenjerrold@gmail.com They wrote this commentary for CalMatters.

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