New research, based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), shows that New Jersey is one of 36 states where public student enrollment will decrease between 2020-2031. New Jersey’s K-12 enrollment drop is expected to be 8.3%. Only nine states will have enrollment increases (Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah) and two will hold steady (Iowa and Nebraska).

Two questions to consider: Why is enrollment dropping and what does this mean for the sustainability of NJ’s public school system?

The first one is pretty obvious: falling birth rates (since 2007 the number of births in the U.S. has dropped by 18%), parent disenchantment with traditional public schools (especially following unnecessarily long covid school closures along with general distrust of government-run institutions), and an increased appetite among parents for non-traditional alternatives like Education Savings Accounts, public charter schools, and microschools.

The second question is harder. If our public school system were a typical business (I know, I know, it’s not but the law requires balanced budgets), fewer customers would lead to lower revenue (the money follows the child), which would lead to a smaller footprint (through school closures) which would lead to lower expenses (necessary teacher lay-offs means lower payroll and employee benefits). Indeed this is already happening: Asbury Park has had a 25% drop in enrollment over the last six years, leading to lower state aid, lay-offs, and school closures; Lakewood has had an 11% drop in district enrollment (admittedly the least of its worries) and Middletown has had a 10% enrollment drop so both have closed schools and laid off teachers and other staff. The same thing is happening in Montclair, Edgewater, Passaic, and many other districts.

One way to shrink the footprint — not a popular concept but an inevitable one NJ has courted for decades —is school district consolidation. This is not a new idea: Gov. John Corzine made merging districts a centerpiece of his education platform, creating the position of Executive County Superintendent, one for each of our 21 counties, with the charge to consolidate. This led to the elimination of 13 non-operating school districts that had no actual school buildings. Total bust. Every governor since has made noises about the need to streamline our state system: for instance, does Deal Boro Public Schools, with a K-8 enrollment of 160 students, need its own superintendent and business administrator?

But this is public education, hardly a business environment, and it’s in Jersey’s DNA to cling to local control, even when school closures aren’t on the table. Recent example: when Camden City Superintendent Alfonso Q. Llano proposed to merge three magnet high schools (Dr. Charles E. Brimm Medical Arts High School, Creative Arts High School, and Big Picture Learning Academy, already housed within Camden High School), into one big Camden High School — all magnets retaining their specialized programming —the public and the local union erupted in such outrage that the school board reversed course. (Llano hasn’t said the reason for the consolidation was to save money but Camden City Schools currently has a $40 million deficit despite state funding of $30,000 per pupil.)

A promising bill, proposed by Senator Vin Gopal, would have mandated consolidation of school districts with fewer than 500 students. “We have a lot of government in New Jersey, and I’m hoping this is going to be the start of that conversation on how we can do this humanely and at the same time improve the quality of life and education and also make life better for taxpayers financially,” Gopal said.

Now the Senator has backed off; maybe merging districts should be voluntary, he says, which means (if history is any guide) it won’t happen at all.

Given the projected drop in enrollment, if we can’t consolidate schools already within the same building, how will we consolidate whole districts? Since we’ll have to lay off teachers and we only do it based on seniority regardless of effectiveness, what will that mean for New Jersey students’ academic progress? If we can’t reform our employee benefits programs (pensions will consume $7.3 billion of Gov. Sherrill’s $60.7 billion budget and the teacher health insurance system is in a “death spiral“), how will we reconfigure our state school system and be fair to taxpayers?

Our collective failure to rein in an over-sized infrastructure is hurting kids. To chose a time-honored example, what if students at Asbury Park, where 6.7% of fifth graders meet grade levels expectations in reading, had options outside of their tiny one mile square district? Or what if students in Wildwood City (total enrollment of 760 students) could go to a district where more than 34% of high school seniors can pass a tenth-grade math test and there are more than five AP courses available?

We’ve put off these questions for a long time. With the coming shrinkage, the Sherrill Administration, legislators, administrators, and school boards owe New Jersey taxpayers some answers about how NJ will right-size its school system.