CHILDREN ARE vanishing from public schools. New York City has lost 30,000 pupils this school year compared with the previous one, a 3% decline. Los Angeles Unified's roster decreased by 19,233 (4%), and Boston's by 5% (2,368 pupils). For a variety of reasons, children from pre-kin-dergarten to high school are disappearing from the rolls. How worrying is this? Analyses are limited, but a deep dive into preliminary data from Massachusetts' public schools by Thomas Dee of Stanford University and Mark Murphy of the University of Hawaii at Manoa shows that most traditional public districts in the state-274 out of 289-had enrolment declines this year in comparison with last year. Massachusetts experienced a 4% statewide loss in this academic year (37,363 pupils) compared with the year before. Not all districts lost pupils, however; charter, vocational and virtual (completely online) districts saw increases. Two virtual districts gained 611 pupils, a 21% increase over the past year, and charter districts gained 1,277 pupils, a 3% increase over 78 districts.
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