Something is shifting in American education, and I think we need to pay attention to it. More families are pulling their kids out of public school, or never enrolling them in the first place. On the first day of school this year, Broward County, Florida, saw enrollment drop by 11,000 students. And because school funding is tied to student counts, declining enrollment is squeezing school budgets across the country.

But look around the country and you'll see versions of the same story.

New York City's traditional public schools have lost nearly 10% of their students since 2019-20. Enrollment has fallen in nearly three-quarters of California school districts over the past five years. And nationally, public schools enrolled roughly 1.4 million fewer students in 2024 than they did in 2019.

Now schools are closing too. More than 1,000 public schools closed during the 2025-26 school year, compared with 755 four years earlier.

And this is where I think the conversation gets much more interesting than “public schools are failing.” The reasons are not one-size-fits-all. Declining birth rates mean there are simply fewer school-aged children in many communities. Housing costs and migration have changed where families live. COVID disrupted enrollment patterns. Some families are choosing private schools, charter schools, homeschooling, hybrid programs, or microschools because they want something different for their child.

And yes, vaccine requirements have played a role for some families too. Vaccine hesitancy has increased, and some parents have chosen homeschooling in part to avoid school vaccination requirements. But the data don't support blaming declining public-school enrollment broadly on vaccines. It's one piece of a much bigger shift.

So this isn't simply a story about parents deciding public school is "bad." There are demographic, economic, cultural, and educational changes happening at the same time.

But regardless of why enrollment is falling, public schools still have to figure out how to educate the kids who walk through their doors.

And that's the part I think deserves a lot more attention.

My own high school was ranked one of the top public high schools in California. On a recent visit home, my mom mentioned the school is now struggling to enroll kids.

The surrounding demographic has simply aged up. Longtime residents are staying in their homes longer, which means fewer homes turning over for young families to move in. A great school with an empty pipeline of kids is its own quiet warning sign about where public education is headed in many communities, not just mine.

As you read, you'll hear me criticize the American school system. But I want to be very clear: this is absolutely not a criticism of teachers, aides, counselors, therapists, or school staff.

I feel about education the same way I feel about healthcare. I can be incredibly critical of our healthcare system while having enormous respect for the doctors, nurses, and other professionals trying to care for people within it.

And you all know I'm a critic of our healthcare system. What you may not know is that I'm also critical of our education system.

Because healthcare and education are two bedrocks of a functioning society. In America, quality healthcare and a quality education should not be things families have to fight for or pay a premium to access.

Teachers are often the ones absorbing the failures of the system.

We keep asking them to do more with less, often in classrooms of 25 or 30 children with completely different academic abilities, learning needs, attention spans, behavioral needs, home environments, and emotional needs, all while being underpaid and undervalued.

The school day is still largely built around groups of kids learning the same material, at roughly the same time, in roughly the same way. But kids don't learn that way.

Neurodiverse kids, including kids with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or sensory differences, may especially struggle when the environment can't flex around how they learn. This applies outside of diagnoses too.

Some kids need movement or more time to process information. Others learn best by doing or need fewer distractions. A child can race through math and struggle with reading. Another can explain a concept beautifully and completely freeze when you put a timed test in front of them.

The system can sometimes measure a child's ability to function within a particular learning environment more easily than it measures everything that child actually understands.

Quick explainer for anyone new to this: an IEP, or Individualized Education Program, is a legal document for eligible students with disabilities that outlines individualized goals, services, supports, and accommodations based on their educational needs. That might include more time on tests, instructions presented differently, therapy services, or a different environment for focusing.

Obviously I'm not suggesting every child literally needs an IEP (or maybe I am to some degree). But I love the idea behind individualizing education because every kid learns differently. Diagnosed or not, every brain comes with its own operating manual.

A personal note here: For years I thought I was just a bad test taker. Looking back, I understood the material just fine. The way I was taught and tested didn't always match how my brain worked. I internalized that as something being wrong with me instead of considering that maybe I needed another way to show what I knew. It wasn’t until medical school that I finally learned how to study and learn in a way that made sense for my brain. 

I wonder how many kids are doing that right now.

Kids are asked to sit and focus for long stretches that do not always match their developmental stage. Even kids without ADHD can struggle with sustained attention, and the younger the child, the more movement we should expect them to need.

I see the friction around this all the time as a pediatrician, especially with my ADHD patients. 

I want to be very clear that I am not against ADHD medication. I prescribe it, and I have seen it completely change a child's experience at school. I have also seen it completely change an adult’s ability to function in their own lives.  It can help a child access learning, manage impulses, and feel more confident after spending years wondering why everything seems harder for them.

But I've also cared for plenty of kids who take medication during the school year and take a break over the summer. And that has made me think a lot about what we're asking of kids during those nine or ten months.

Medication may absolutely be the right tool for that child. But I also want to look at the environment we're asking that child to function in.

What if there were more opportunities to move during the school day? What if a child with ADHD wasn't expected to sustain attention from a desk for such long stretches? What if there were more hands-on ways to learn and more flexibility in how kids show what they know?

The AAP actually considers the school environment, program, and placement part of an ADHD treatment plan. Classroom supports can include movement breaks, reducing distractions, changes in assignments, and behavioral supports.

Of course this is hard. A teacher with 25 or 30 kids cannot create a completely different school day for every child.

But I think we have to be careful about asking a child's brain to do all the adapting without also asking how much the environment can adapt to them.

Kids who are gifted in art, trade skills, coding, mechanics, entrepreneurship, or media can spend years on essentially the same academic track as kids who thrive in traditional academics.

Of course I want kids to have strong foundations in reading, writing, math, science, and history. But as they get older, why aren't there more opportunities to build an education around where their strengths and interests are taking them?

I would love to see actual tracks or electives in entrepreneurship, coding, financial literacy, skilled trades, multimedia, video production, graphic design, engineering, health sciences, and other areas that reflect the skills people actually use to build careers.

Imagine a teenager interested in entrepreneurship learning how to build a business plan, understand profit and expenses, market a product, communicate with clients, and manage money. Or a kid interested in multimedia learning video production, editing, storytelling, design, and the business side of creative work. Those are real skills that can lead to real careers.

A child who is incredible with their hands shouldn't spend 12 years believing they're less capable because essays and standardized tests aren't where they shine. A kid who lights up while coding, building, designing, creating, or selling something should have meaningful opportunities to get better at those skills as part of their education.

Other countries give vocational education a much bigger role during the high school years. Across OECD countries, about 44% of upper-secondary students are enrolled in vocational programs, and in several countries, it's more than two-thirds.

And these pathways don't necessarily close the door to college. Many still allow students to continue into higher education.

I think there's something worth learning from that, while also expanding what these options could look like for today's kids: skilled trades, yes, but also coding, entrepreneurship, multimedia, engineering, design, health sciences, and other areas where kids can develop strengths that aren't always captured in a traditional academic setting.

College can be an incredible path. It just doesn't need to be the definition of educational success for every kid.

I want kids leaving school with a strong academic foundation, but also with some idea of what they're good at, what they enjoy, and how those strengths could translate into a future career.

And I think there's an economic piece underneath our obsession with college that we don't talk about enough.

For decades, American kids have been told that college is the path to success. And I understand why. When housing, childcare, healthcare, and higher education are so expensive, parents understandably want their kids on a path toward jobs that pay enough to afford them.

But look at the cycle we've created.

We tell young people they need to earn more to afford life in America. And honestly, look at the numbers we're asking them to earn just to feel financially stable. Housing is expensive. Childcare is expensive. Healthcare is expensive. College is expensive.

Then we tell them a four-year degree is one of the safest ways to earn enough to afford all of it. But that degree can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Professional degrees can cost even more. So some young adults start their careers already carrying enormous debt just to qualify for the jobs that may pay enough to afford the life they're trying to build.

It doesn't have to work exactly this way. College and professional degrees can be more affordable. Vocational pathways can carry real value. Healthcare doesn't have to depend so heavily on employment. Families can have more support with childcare.

So yes, I think capitalism is part of this conversation. But I think the bigger issue is the version we've built in America, where families are personally responsible for paying for so many of the basics required to live, work, and raise children.

I don't want our education system to exist mainly to prepare kids to earn enough money to afford an increasingly expensive adulthood.

I want kids to learn, think, create, build skills, contribute to their communities, and find work that gives them a good life. And I want that good life to be possible without every child believing a four-year degree is the price of admission.

Start times are another example of school operating within the structure of the rest of society.

For many families, school schedules have to work around buses, transportation, childcare, sports, and parents' jobs. And yes, our school schedules also fit pretty conveniently into the corporate 9-to-5 structure, which is probably a whole other newsletter.

But what works for the adult workday isn't necessarily what works best for a developing brain.

This becomes especially important in adolescence, when puberty naturally shifts the body's internal clock later. Teenagers biologically tend to fall asleep later, yet many have to wake incredibly early for school.

Sleep affects attention, memory, mood, and learning. If we care about academic performance, school schedules deserve to be part of that conversation too.

Changing start times is difficult. Transportation, athletics, childcare, parents' work schedules, and after-school jobs don't magically rearrange themselves because teenagers need more sleep.

It's complicated. But complicated things can still be worth examining.

Standardized testing can give us useful information about how students and schools are doing. I don't think testing itself is the enemy. But, I do think we put a lot of weight on it. (says the person who has taken way more standardized tests in her life en route to becoming a pediatrician and IBCLC). 

A standardized test captures a limited part of what a kid knows and can do. Some incredibly bright kids freeze when a timer starts. Others understand the material but struggle to demonstrate that understanding on a multiple-choice test.

And when schools are under enormous pressure to produce certain scores, teachers can end up spending valuable classroom time preparing kids for the test. And the anxiety this creates in kids as young as 8 or 9 is a real and measurable problem.

Funding and resources

A child's educational opportunities can still vary enormously based on where they live.

Some schools have counselors, strong special education departments, arts programs, newer facilities, extracurriculars, and smaller classes. Other schools are trying to cover basic needs with limited staff and budgets.

Curriculum can also fall behind real-world skills like financial literacy, media literacy, and emotional regulation. Class sizes can make individualizing instruction difficult even when teachers desperately want to do it. Mental health services in schools are often under-resourced compared with the need.

And this matters even more when enrollment declines.

When a district loses enough students, it eventually has to decide how many buildings, teachers, programs, and services it can continue supporting.

That can create a really difficult cycle. A district loses students. Resources and staffing may eventually shrink. Families become concerned about what the school can offer. Families with other options may leave. The district loses more students.

Meanwhile, the school still has to serve whoever walks through the door.

Teacher burnout, by the numbers

According to RAND’s 2025 State of the American Teacher survey, 53 percent of K-12 teachers reported feeling burned out. Major sources of stress included managing student behavior, low pay, working outside contract hours, insufficient planning time, and supporting students' mental health needs.The core issue is that the job has gotten bigger while the time, pay, and support to do it have not kept up.

Turnover is expensive too, costing districts anywhere from about $11,860 to nearly $25,000 per teacher who leaves. Up to 30 percent of new teachers quit within their first five years, which tells you burnout hits long before the 20-year mark. 

The number that gets me comes from a 2025 University of Missouri study, 78 percent of public school teachers said they've thought about quitting since the pandemic (sounds so similar to healthcare). They pointed to the same things over and over: no support from above, too much work, too little pay, and student behavior that keeps getting harder to manage. 

Meanwhile, the job description keeps growing. We expect teachers to educate kids while managing behavior, supporting mental health needs, communicating with families, preparing students for testing, and responding to emergencies.

And school safety has become part of that job in a way previous generations of educators didn't experience. Teachers and administrators have lockdown procedures and emergency planning layered onto everything else they're responsible for. They're being asked to think about how they would protect a classroom during a worst-case scenario while also doing the job they actually signed up to do: teach kids.

When I see the burnout numbers, I wonder how much we can reasonably expect one person to carry.

We want a teacher to recognize that one child needs more movement, another is struggling to read, another already mastered today's lesson, and another may be dealing with something difficult at home.

Meanwhile, there are 20-something other kids in the room. How can we support a child’s educational needs with a fragmented system where our leaders (teachers and administration) aren’t even supported? 

This reminds me so much of what is happening in healthcare.

Take two equally talented doctors. Give one 30 patients to see in a day and give the other 12 or 15.

Who has more time to listen? Who can spend an extra ten minutes figuring out why a child keeps having the same problem? Who can answer questions without constantly watching the clock?

That doesn't tell you who is the better doctor. It tells you what happens when a good professional has enough time to do their job.

I think about teachers the same way.

Take an excellent teacher and put them in a classroom with 30 kids who have different academic, behavioral, developmental, and emotional needs.

Now give that same teacher a smaller class, an aide, adequate planning time, and access to specialists.

Of course their ability to individualize changes.

And that's what I think we should pay attention to when families start leaving the public school system. 

What are they finding there that they wish they had in their neighborhood public school?

Maybe it's smaller classes or more flexibility. For some families, it's more individual attention, more movement, different academic pathways, or being able to let a child spend more time where they need it.

Homeschooling can be wonderful. Private school can be wonderful. Microschools and hybrid programs can be wonderful.

But accessing those options may require money, time, transportation, flexible work, a parent who can be home, or simply having those options available where you live.

And we're not always comparing equivalent systems.

A homeschool family controls the number of children they're teaching. A microschool can intentionally keep enrollment small. A private school may have admissions criteria or limits on which students it has the resources to support. But our public schools take everyone. They serve children learning English and children with significant disabilities. They serve kids whose families cannot afford private tutoring or therapy, kids who rely on school meals, and families who simply need the school down the street to work.

That doesn't mean families shouldn't choose those alternatives. They absolutely should if they're the best fit for their child.

But it does mean we can't look at families leaving public schools and decide the solution is simply to give more families ways to leave.

Because millions of children will still be there.

So the question I'm left with is: What would make more families want to stay?

I don't have a neat solution to a problem this big. And I don't think there is one solution.

Telling families to homeschool, go private, or find a microschool may solve a problem for an individual child. It isn't a national plan for educating tens of millions of children.

I think falling enrollment should make us curious about what families want, and what kids and teachers need.

If families are leaving because they want smaller classes, let's talk seriously about class size.

If kids need more individualized learning, give teachers the staffing, resources, and time to actually provide it.

If kids need more movement, protect recess, build movement into the school day, and rethink how much sitting we're asking of them.

If teenagers are falling asleep in class, take adolescent sleep seriously and look at school start times instead of assuming they're lazy or irresponsible.

If we're worried about academic achievement, let's make sure kids are actually learning without making standardized testing the center of their education.

If kids are struggling with anxiety, behavior, or mental health, schools need counselors, psychologists, social workers, and behavioral support. Teachers cannot be expected to fill all of those roles.

If families want alternatives to a traditional college-focused academic track, build stronger vocational and interest-based pathways while keeping doors open to higher education.

And if teachers are drowning, listen to them. Pay them appropriately. Give them planning time, smaller classes, aides, special educators, therapists, and the freedom to actually teach.

We should also be willing to look at what families like about the alternatives they're choosing. Is it the smaller setting? More flexibility? More movement? Less testing? More individualized instruction? A stronger sense of community?

And when families leave, ask them why.

Falling enrollment shouldn't only be treated as a funding problem. It should be treated as feedback.

There may be a lot public education can learn from the alternatives families are choosing.

Parents have to make the best decision they can for the child standing in front of them. If a family can choose homeschool, private school, or another alternative that costs money, I'm genuinely happy they have that option.

Our responsibility as a country is different.

And I think part of why this worries me so much is that I've watched something similar happen in healthcare.

As healthcare has become more corporatized, clinicians are being asked to see more patients in less time. Some physicians are leaving traditional practices for concierge models where they can spend more time with patients, but that access comes at a price. If you have money, you may be able to pay for longer appointments, easier access to your doctor, and more individualized care. If you don't, your choices are much more limited.

I worry about education moving in a similar direction.

Families with resources can pay for private school, tutors, microschools, specialized programs, or have the flexibility to homeschool. Again, I don't fault any family for doing that. I would make the best choice I could for my own child too.

But what happens to the system everyone else depends on as more people who have the ability to leave?

There are certain things I believe should be foundational in a functioning society: affordable housing, access to quality healthcare, and access to quality education. Your ZIP code and your parents' bank account shouldn't determine whether you get a good doctor or a good education.

That's what worries me about declining enrollment and school closures.

I don't have an issue with families having choices. I worry about what happens if we put enormous energy into creating ways to exit public education without putting the same energy into making public schools places families want to attend.

Public schools will continue educating millions of children, including many children who need significant educational and social support. They can't become the option that's left for families who don't have another option.

Supporting public education doesn't require protecting the status quo. We should question what isn't working, invest in what does, support teachers, expect accountability, give families choices, and pay close attention when families tell us why they're looking elsewhere.

Dismantling public education isn't the answer. Making public education something more families genuinely want to choose should be part of the answer.

As parents, we have to ask what educational environment works best for our own child.

As a society, I think we have to ask something bigger: Are we okay with quality healthcare and quality education becoming things you increasingly have to pay extra to access?

Because I don't think that's the direction we should be heading.

A child's access to a great education shouldn't depend on what their parents can afford.

That is the conversation I want us to keep having.

If this got you thinking, I had a great conversation on the podcast with a former educator and nationally certified school psychologist, about many of these same issues.

We talk about what's not working in the American school system, why schools and teachers are overwhelmed, the impact on kids' mental health, and what we could be doing differently.

Dr. Mona will answer these questions in a future Sunday Morning Q&A email. Chances are if you have a parenting concern or question, another parent can relate. So let's figure this out together!