At a February board meeting for Memphis-Shelby county schools in Tennessee, a parent of five children who currently or formerly attended Ida B Wells Academy, an alternative education school, asked board members a question.
“This is a high-performing school. This is not a school in crisis,” she said. “So I respectfully ask, why are we considering closing a school that is working?”
Indeed, while only 23% of students at the K-8 school tested at or above grade level in English language arts and 27% tested at or above grade level in math – which was below state averages – that was still better than the district’s Chickasaw middle school, where only 7% of students tested at or above grade level in English and less than 5% did so in math, according to state data.
But the district was still considering closing both those two schools – and three others too – in large part because student enrollment had plummeted, which meant the district was not using parts of old buildings that required significant maintenance.
The district is one among many in the United States that have closed schools and are considering closing more. One of the primary reasons is that many adults in the US are simply not having kids, or having fewer of them. And an increasing number of those who do are instead sending their kids to private schools or homeschooling them.
I vividly recall when the Ashland, Ore., school district closed two of its five elementary schools. This was in the early aughts, and people were up in arms. But the reality was, the city was bifurcating into retirees from California seeking “cheap” housing (pricing out families with young kids – we were already above $400K median 20 years ago, in a city of 20,000) and college students who not could afford anything but the dorms.
What’s the real downside of localized population decline? I’m not going to have a child to help the financials of a school district, I think society should be able to adapt to fluctuations in population without having too much of a tantrum 🤷
My wife and I want a child someday and we’re privileged enough to be able to afford that (probably) but it’s not because we’re afraid of the human species going extinct or demographics changing over time. A lot of concern about birth rates is very white supremacist-coded even if some individuals aren’t aware of that.
Honestly, I think it has to do with property values. If we can’t keep doing this pyramid scheme, the whole premise falls apart. Fewer buyers are not what anybody who owns real property wants.
Who can afford it and who wants to bring their kids up in this
Millennials are killing the children industry!
- Some headline somewhere in the news
“People are hoarding old children for longer instead of getting new ones” - CNBC, probably.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/how-device-hoarding-by-americans-is-costing-economy.html
It’s all that fucking avocado toast.
Gee, why could that possibly be
Excellent infographics.
There seems to be a misunderstanding about how the economy priced its participants out of, well … participating. I’ve been homeless for two-and-a-half years because rent kept going up 15% while I’d not even get a COLA raise. At a certain point, food is more essential than fixed housing.
So, kids? Uh … I can’t afford my own life; in what world would I be so callous as to force someone new to endure a life of servitude?
(I’ve been antinatalist for a while, he says while a foot or two away from his ex’s grandson’s Lego table.)
I know plenty of people in my wider social circle who either chose not to have children, waited until they were older and had more of a financial buffer, or only have one when they wanted multiple due to costs. Also, there are now studies to indicate adverse affects of COVID (both active and affects from previous exposure, or “long COVID”) on fertility and negative birth outcomes.
