About 1% of Wisconsin's Estimated Student Population Seems to Be Missing From School Headcounts

Sunday, October 8th, 2023 -- 6:17 AM

About 1% of Wisconsin's estimated student population seems to be missing from school headcounts, a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found.

The report relied on data from fall 2019 through fall 2022, as enrollment data for the current school year have not yet been released. The lead researchers, Sara Shaw and Ari Brown, found that during that time, public school enrollment fell by about 32,000 students. The total was 854,959 in fall 2019 and 822,804 in fall 2022. Most of that drop was easy to explain: birth rates continued declining, and many students moved into private schools and homeschooling. But after considering those factors, the researchers were still unable to explain a shortfall of about 4,500 to 11,600 students. That represents about 0.5% to 1.2% of the state's school-age population.

Some of the drop could be from families leaving the state, which is difficult to track. However, even zooming out to the national level, there are unexplained drop-offs. A February report by Stanford University, Big Local News and the Associated Press found that researchers were unable to explain about a third of the enrollment decline in public schools nationwide between fall 2019 and fall 2021. (Rory Linnane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.