IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v100y2024ics0272775724000219.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The stickiness of pandemic-driven disenrollment from public schools

Author

Listed:
  • Bacher-Hicks, Andrew
  • Musaddiq, Tareena
  • Goodman, Joshua
  • Stange, Kevin

Abstract

The extent to which pandemic-induced public school enrollment declines will persist is unclear. Student-level data from Michigan through fall 2021 yields three relevant findings. First, relative to pre-pandemic trends, fall 2021 enrollment had partially recovered for low-income, Black, and Hispanic students, but had declined further for non-low-income, White, and Asian students. Second, annual public school exit rates remained elevated for elementary students and accelerated further for middle school students. Third, public school exit is sticky and varies by chosen alternative. Only 21 percent of those who left for private schools in fall 2020 had returned by fall 2021, while 50 percent of those who left for homeschooling had returned. These findings suggest that pandemic-driven public school enrollment declines may persist, and more so among higher income families.

Suggested Citation

  • Bacher-Hicks, Andrew & Musaddiq, Tareena & Goodman, Joshua & Stange, Kevin, 2024. "The stickiness of pandemic-driven disenrollment from public schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:100:y:2024:i:c:s0272775724000219
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2024.102527
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775724000219
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2024.102527?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roy, Joydeep & Nguyen-Hoang, Phuong, 2022. "School enrollments during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of New York," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    2. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.
    3. Musaddiq, Tareena & Stange, Kevin & Bacher-Hicks, Andrew & Goodman, Joshua, 2022. "The Pandemic’s effect on demand for public schools, homeschooling, and private schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Bacher-Hicks, Andrew & Goodman, Joshua & Mulhern, Christine, 2021. "Inequality in household adaptation to schooling shocks: Covid-induced online learning engagement in real time," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    5. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2021. "Advanced Cognitive Skill Deserts in the United States: Their Likely Causes and Implications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 52(1 (Spring), pages 317-366.
    6. Andrew Bacher-Hicks & Joshua Goodman & Jennifer Greif Green & Melissa K. Holt, 2022. "The COVID-19 Pandemic Disrupted Both School Bullying and Cyberbullying," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 353-370, September.
    7. Thomas Dee & Elizabeth Huffaker & Cheryl Phillips & Eric Sagara, 2021. "The Revealed Preferences for School Reopening: Evidence from Public-School Disenrollment," NBER Working Papers 29156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Chatterji, Pinka & Li, Yue, 2021. "Effects of COVID-19 on school enrollment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David R. Agrawal & Aline Bütikofer, 2022. "Public finance in the era of the COVID-19 crisis," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(6), pages 1349-1372, December.
    2. Roy, Joydeep & Nguyen-Hoang, Phuong, 2022. "School enrollments during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of New York," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    3. Clare Halloran & Rebecca Jack & James C. Okun & Emily Oster, 2021. "Pandemic Schooling Mode and Student Test Scores: Evidence from US States," NBER Working Papers 29497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Riley K. Acton & Wenjia Cao & Emily E. Cook & Scott A. Imberman & Michael F. Lovenheim, 2022. "The Effect of Vaccine Mandates on Disease Spread: Evidence from College COVID-19 Mandates," NBER Working Papers 30303, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Werner, Katharina & Woessmann, Ludger, 2021. "The Legacy of COVID-19 in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 14796, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Musaddiq, Tareena & Stange, Kevin & Bacher-Hicks, Andrew & Goodman, Joshua, 2022. "The Pandemic’s effect on demand for public schools, homeschooling, and private schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    7. Joe Piacentini & Harley Frazis & Peter B. Meyer & Michael Schultz & Leo Sveikauskas, 2022. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Labor Markets and Inequality," Economic Working Papers 551, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    8. Gillitzer, Christian & Prasad, Nalini, 2024. "The effect of school closures on standardized test scores: Evidence under zero-COVID policies," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    9. Chun, Hyunbae & Kwon, Eunjee & Yang, Dongyun, 2024. "The rise of e-commerce and generational consumption inequality: Evidence from COVID-19 in South Korea," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    10. Gopi Shah Goda & Emilie Jackson & Lauren Hersch Nicholas & Sarah See Stith, 2023. "The impact of Covid-19 on older workers’ employment and Social Security spillovers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 813-846, April.
    11. Ro’i Zultan & Eldar Dadon, 2023. "Missing the forest for the trees: when monitoring quantitative measures distorts task prioritization," Working Papers 2319, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    12. Petra Nieken & Sven Walther, 2024. "Honesty in Virtual Communication," CESifo Working Paper Series 11094, CESifo.
    13. Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Oseni, Gbemisola & Abanokova, Kseniya, 2025. "Educational inequalities during COVID-19: Results from longitudinal surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    14. Svaleryd, Helena & Vlachos, Jonas, 2022. "COVID-19 and School Closures," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1008, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & José de Sousa & Alexis Noir-Luhalwe, 2022. "Social Distancing and Risk Taking: Evidence from a Team Game Show [Distanciation sociale et prise de risque : Les résultats d'un jeu d'équipe]," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03792423, HAL.
    16. Yekaterina Chzhen & Jennifer Symonds & Dympna Devine & Júlia Mikolai & Susan Harkness & Seaneen Sloan & Gabriela Martinez Sainz, 2022. "Learning in a Pandemic: Primary School children’s Emotional Engagement with Remote Schooling during the spring 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown in Ireland," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(4), pages 1517-1538, August.
    17. Emily Beam & Priya Mukherjee & Laia Navarro-Sola, 2022. "Lowering Barriers to Remote Education: Experimental Impacts on Parental Responses and Learning," Working Papers 2022-030, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    18. Karla Dhungana Sainju & Huda Zaidi & Niti Mishra & Akosua Kuffour, 2022. "Xenophobic Bullying and COVID-19: An Exploration Using Big Data and Qualitative Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-19, April.
    19. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2023. "Time Savings When Working from Home," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 597-603, May.
    20. Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian & Kecht, Valentin & Lehmann, Robert, 2022. "The diffusion of technological progress in ICT," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:100:y:2024:i:c:s0272775724000219. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.